the Historical Foundations of Research Policies in Europe

Edited by Luca Guzzetti European Commission DG RTD

Address: Rue de la Loi, 200 SDME 2/147, B-1049 Brussels Fax: (32-2) 299 42 07 E-mail: [email protected] Euroscientia Conferences

Science and Power: the Historical Foundations of Research Policies in Europe

A Conference organised by the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza (Firenze, Italy)

Edited by Luca Guzzetti

Firenze, 8-10 December 1994 A great deal of additional information on the European Union is available on the Internet. It can be accessed through the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int).

Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication.

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2000

ISBN 92-828-9351-0

© European Communities, 2000

Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.

Printed in Belgium

PRINTED ON WHITE CHLORINE-FREE PAPER Table of Contents

Editor's Note 7

The Contributors 9

1. From Patronage to the Management of Science 11

Nicholas Jardine, The Place of Astronomy in Early-Modern European Culture 13

Giuseppe Olmi, Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage " in Italy 25

Paula Findlen, A Site of Encounter: The Emergence of the Science Museum 47

William Eamon, Unmannered Science: Natural Philosophy and Medical Practice in the Piazza 63

2. Cognitive and Political Organisation of Science 69

Simon Schaffer, Modernity and Metrology 71

Kostas Gavroglu, The Sciences at the European Periphery during the Enlightenment: Transmission versus Appropriation 93

Svante Lindqvist, A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Science: The Dilemma of Engineering Schools in the 20th Century 109

Stuart Blume, Structures of Innovation and Their Historic Roots: The Case of Medicine 121 Table of Contents

3. The Development of National S&T Policies 137

Rudolf Stichweh, Differentiation of Science and Politics: Science Policy in the 19th and 20th Century 139

François Jacq, The Emergence of French Research Policy: Chance or Necessity? 149

José M. Sánchez-Ron, Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 -1960) 161

Roberto Maiocchi, Fascism and Italian Science Policy 179

Claudio Pogliano, Images and Practice of Science in Post-War Italy 187

Andrew Pickering, Beyond the Great Divide: Transformations of Science and Its Context in World War II 197 David Edgerton, The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s 207

4. Notes on a New Epistemology 237

Wolfgang Lefèvre, Material and Social Conditions in a Historical Epistemology of Scientific Thinking 239

Euroscientia Conferences - Information Note 247 Editor's Note Luca Guzzetti

The aim of the conference was to highlight the main issues and trends that have characterised the centuries-long process of institutionalisation of scientific and technological research in Europe. Attention has been mostly focused on the great changes that occurred in the period 1500-1800 in the forms of patronage and institutional setting of the sciences, and on the process of progressive nationalisation of science in contemporary Europe. These historical studies represent a good stand-point for a critical assessment of the factors determining research policies and of the means deployed for their implementation.

For several reasons - the quite long time passed since the taking place of the conference among them - not all the texts of the conference could be gathered for publication here. The sixteen articles composing this volume have thus been reorganised - following a roughly historical order in four sections: "From Patronage to the Management of Science", "Cognitive and Political Organisation of Science", "The Development of National S&T Policies" and "Notes on a New Epistemology".

The first four papers deal with the period of birth of modern science, considering the development of a single discipline - astronomy (Nicholas Jardine) - and the role that "places" and social institutions different from the learned societies - the court (Giuseppe Olmi), the Science museum (Paula Findlen), and the piazza (William Eamon) - have played in the early institutionalisation of science. The two following articles treat of the role of standardisation in early modernity (Simon Schaffer), and of the appropriation of modern science in a European "periphery" (Kostas Gavroglu). Aspects of the modern development of two scientific disciplines are then considered: education in engineering (Svante Lindqvist), and the professional diffusion of new technologies in medicine (Stuart Blume).

Getting closer to the twentieth century, the State becomes the main actor in scientific and technological activities, and the concept itsef of "science policy" emerges (Rudolf Stichweh). Five articles thus look at the development of politics and science policies in different European countries: France (François Jacq), Spain (José M. Sánchez-Ron), Italy (Roberto Maiocchi, Claudio Pogliano), and Great Britain (David Edgerton). With the only exception of the article by Andrew Pickering dealing mostly with the US, all texts consider the changing relations between science and power and the institutionalisation of science in Editor's Note

Europe, in different periods of its history. The historical ordering has not been respected in the case of Wolgang Lefèvre, who in his article presents a historical approach to the philosophy of science - seemingly developing the proposals of naturalisation (Willard V. Quine) and socialisation (Mary Hesse) of epistemology.

The conference was held in Florence from 8 to 10 December 1994, in the framework of the European Science and Technology Forum '. It was organised by the Istutito e Museo di Storia della Scienza (Florence) in collaboration with the Centre d'Histoire des Sciences et Techniques (Paris), CI.S. (Bologna), Department of History and Philosophy of Science (Cambridge), Instituto Documentales e Históricos sobre la Ciencia (Valencia), European University Institute (Florence), Max-Planck-Institut (Berlin), Office for the History of Science (Uppsala). Its scientific committee was formed by Michel André, Tore Frängsmyr, Paolo Galluzzi, Nicholas Jardine, John Krige, José M. López Pinero, Giuliano Pancaldi, Dominique Pestre, Jürgen Renn, Simon Schaffer. Special thanks to Marco Beretta, scientific secretary of the conference, who collaborated in the editing of the proceedings.

Now, Euroscientia Conferences. The Contributors

Stuart Blume, Department of Science and Technology Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

William Eamon, Department of History, New Mexico State University, USA.

David Edgerton, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, United Kingdom.

Paula Findlen, Department of History, Stanford University, USA.

Kostas Gavroglu, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Athens, Greece.

François Jacq, Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, France.

Nicholas Jardine, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Wolfgang Lefèvre, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, Germany.

Svante Lindqvist, Museum Director, The Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden.

Roberto Malocchi, Dipartimento di Filosofia, Università Cattolica di Milano, Italy.

Giuseppe Olmi, Dipartimento di Discipline Storiche, Università di Bologna, Italy.

Andrew Pickering, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois, USA.

Claudio Pogliano, Istituto e Museo di Storia delle Scienza, Firenze, Italy The Contributors

José M. Sánchez-Ron, Departamento de Física Teórica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.

Simon Schaffer, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University, United Kingdom.

Rudolf Stichweh, Faculty of Sociology, University of Bielefeld, Germany.

10 1. From Patronage to the Management of Science

The Place of Astronomy in Early-Modern European Culture* Nicholas Jardine

Introduction

My paper will deal with ways in which forms of patronage affected the beliefs and goals of astronomy in the early modern period. Astronomy did not then make up a specialty or discipline in anything like the modern sense. Rather, it comprised a whole series of practices widely diffused through the various social sites and strata. So I shall start with a quick survey of the types and settings of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century astronomy. I shall then concentrate on courtly patronage and its roles in sixteenth-century innovations in astronomy.

Types and sites of astronomy

Throughout the period astronomy (including what we call astrology) occupied a minor, but fairly constant place in university curricula. It was the noblest of the mathematical arts of the old quadrivium - arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. It was part of the arts course preparatory to study in a higher faculty, generally law or theology in the Northern universities, law or medicine in the Italian universities. Although lecturers in "higher mathematics", that is, astronomy and astrology, were better paid than those in "lower mathematics", that is, arithmetic and geometry, the pay was miserable compared with the salaries of teachers in the higher faculties - at best a fifth or a quarter. The mathematics posts often provided a first taste of teaching for young men moving on to medicine, law or theology; and they were not infrequently held concurrently with medical professorships. University statutes and textbooks show astronomy teaching to have been for the most part at a very elementary level. The most widely used basic texts were commented versions of the thirteenth century De sphaera of Sacrobosco, a clear and simple treatment of spherical astronomy, often taught alongside works dealing with calendrical matters, with practical astronomical/astrological calculations, and with sundials, astrolabes and other instruments. In the course of the century, however, De sphaera was often replaced by a cosmographical textbook dealing with both the terrestrial and the celestial worlds, the best-known and most comprehensive of these

' A different version of this article has been published in Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol. 29, 1998, pp. 49-62.

13 Nicholas Jardine being Philip Apian's Cosmographicus liber of 1524. Neither De sphaera nor the cosmo- graphical textbooks offered more than rudimentary discussion of planetary theory. In the few universities which taught advanced astronomy they were supplemented by a Theorica in which detailed planetary models were set out, the most widely used being Peuerbach's Theoricae novae planetarum. Astrological instruction, often using Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos and the pseudo-Ptolemaic Centiloquium, was usually included in the curriculum.'

The emphasis in university teaching of astronomy was predominantly practical and utilitarian, directed towards the calendrical, navigational, agricultural, and, above all, medical applications of the subject. Planetary models were on the whole considered as fictions devised for predictive purposes.2 Indeed, discussion of the real natures of the heavenly bodies and their motions rarely appeared in the arts course. To the extent that detailed treatment of such matters figured in university curricula, it was in the context of natural philosophy, in the rarefied and specialised areas of commentary on Aristotle's De Cáelo and Metaphysica, Book XII.3

It is, however, misleading to consider this as a period of Europe-wide conservatism and stagnation in the astronomy of the universities. For both Reformation and Counter- reformation were powerful stimuli to more sophisticated university astronomy. On the flyleaf of his copy of Vesalius' De Humani corporis fabrica, of 1543, the Lutheran edu• cational reformer Philip Melanchthon jotted down a poem celebrating Divine Providence:

1 On astronomy in the universities see CS. Schmitt, "Astronomy in universities, 1560-1660", in M.A. Hoskin (ed.), The General History of Astronomy, vol. 3A, Cambridge, forthcoming; R.S. Westman, "The astronomer's role in the sixteenth century: a preliminary study", History of Science, 18, 1980, pp. 105-47; M. Biagioli, "The social status of Italian mathematicians 1450-1600", History of Science, 27, 1989, pp. 41-95 (which includes a comprehensive bibliography). On astronomy textbooks in the period see F.R. Johnson, "Astronomical text-books in the sixteenth century", in E.A. Underwood (ed.), Science, Medicine and History: Essays in the Evolution of Scientific Thought and Medical Practice Written in Honour of Charles Singer, vol. 1, London, 1953, pp. 285-302; J. Bennett and D. Bertoloni Meli (eds.), Sphaera Mundi: Astronomy Books 1478-1600. A 50th Anniversary Exhibition at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Cambridge, 1994. 2 The classic work on the "fictionalist" construal of astronomical hypothesis is P. Duhem [1908], transi. E. Doland and C. Maschler, To Save the Phenomena, Chicago, 1969. Reassessments of Duhem's interpretations include R.S. Westman, "The Melanchthon circle, Rheticus, and the Wittenberg inter• pretation of the Copernican hypothesis", Isis, 66, 1975, pp. 163-93; E.J. Aiton, "Celestial spheres and circles", History of Science, 19, 1981, pp. 75-113; N. Jardine, "Scepticism in Renaissance astronomy", in R.H. Popkin and C.B. Schmitt (eds.), Scepticism from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, Wolfenbüttel, 1987, pp. 83-102. 3 See, e.g., W.H. Donahue, The Dissolution of the Celestial Spheres, New York, 1981; N. Jardine, "The significance of the Copernican orbs", Journal of the History of Astronomy, 13, 1982, pp. 168-94. Note that commentaries on the Theorica planetarum did on occasion touch lightly on the natural philosophy of the heavenly bodies.

14 The Place of Astronomy in Early-Modern European Culture

the constant disposition of the earth and heavens, the ordered movement of the stars recurring in their course / bear witness that a Deity intelligent and good / established those powers and now holds them in control.4

Sachiko Kusukawa has recently shown in detail how Melanchthon and Camerarius promoted the study of astronomy and astrology as revelations of God's orderly government of the physical and moral worlds.5 Erasmus Reinhold, Professor of Higher Mathematics at Wittenberg from 1536, brought predictive astronomy to unprecedented levels of com• putational expertise in his commentaries on Peuerbach's Theoricae novae (1542), and on the first book of Ptolemy's Almagest (1549). Like most Lutheran astronomers of the period, Reinhold was non-committal, indeed sceptical, about the reality of the Copernican planetary models; but his Tabulae Prutenicae of 1551, which soon became standard throughout Europe, are based on Copernican models.6

Improvement in mathematical, and especially astronomical teaching was likewise a major concern of the Jesuit colleges. Thus their Ratio studiorum of 1580 declares:

[mathematics] teaches poets about the rising and setting of the stars; [...] teaches metaphy• sicians the number of the spheres and intelligences; teaches theologians the principal parts of the divine creation; teaches jurists and canonists calendrical computation, not to speak of the services rendered by the work of mathematicians to the state, to medicine, to navigation, and to agriculture. An effort must therefore be made so that mathematics will flourish in our colleges as well as the other disciplines.7

This is the context of the work of the great Jesuit astronomer Christoph Clavius, from 1563 teacher of mathematics at the Collegio Romano (which became the Gregorian University in 1581). Clavius is famed as one of the masterminds of the Gregorian calendrical reform of 1582. In that year he published his commentary on Sacrobosco's De sphaera, a work remark• able both for its technical sophistication (rivalling that of Reinhold) and for its treatment of

4 Reproduced and translated in A. Cunningham and T Hug, Focus on the Frontispiece of the "Fabrica " ofVesalius, Cambridge Wellcome Publications - Exhibition Series, Cambridge, 1994, p. 39. 5 S. Kusukawa, The Transformation of Natural Philosophy: The Case of Philip Melanchthon, Cambridge, 1995. 6 On Reinhold see Westman, op. cit., n. 1; O. Ginerich, "Reinhold, Erasmus", in C.C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 11, New York, 1975, pp. 365-7; R.A. Jarrell, "The contem• poraries of Tycho Brahe", in M.A. Hoskin (ed.), The General History of Astronomy, vol. 2A, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 22-32. 7 Ratio studiorum et institutionis scholasticae Societatis Jesu, vol. 2, ed. G.M. Pachtler, Berlin, 1887-94, pp. 141-2; transi, in P. Dear, Mersenne and the Learning of the Schools, Ithaca (NY), 1988, pp. 44-5.

15 Nicholas Jardine the Copernican hypothesis, greatly elaborated in the many subsequent editions. As Ugo Baldini has shown, from the 1590s Clavius disseminated astronomical expertise to the Catholic courts and universities of Europe through the sending abroad of his students and through his vast correspondence network.8

At court patronage of astronomy already had a long history by the sixteenth century. Astrologer-physicians had long held positions of power and prestige at both temporal and ecclesiastical courts. Alfonso the Wise of Castile and the Emperor Frederick II had sponsored astronomical instrument-making and observation on scales unprecedented in the Christian West. In the latter part of the fifteenth century in the increasingly theatrical Italian courts with their patrician bureaucracies astronomers had acquired new roles as advisers on ritual and display - a striking example being the astrological décor of the Palazzo Schifanoia commissioned by Borso d'Esté.9 At the same time "courteous" humanistic bibliophilia in the Italian courts led to increasing awareness of the richness of ancient mathematics, and in particular of the variety of ancient astronomical hypotheses and astrological doctrines.10

Robert Westman, Bruce Moran, John Leopold and Mario Biagioli have shown how in the course of the sixteenth century there arose an entirely new kind of princely and aristocratic involvement in astronomy, an involvement in which astronomical observations, instruments, models, and ultimately world systems themselves became objects of courtly production, exchange, and competition. This new courtly culture of astronomy was centred on the court of Landgraf Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel, on Tycho Brahe's island of Hven, held in fief from Frederick II of Denmark, and later at Rudolf IT s Imperial court at Prague, and at the Medici and papal courts. By 1600 a substantial number of astronomers were dining at princely tables rather than seated below the salt at University feasts." I shall return to this new courtly culture in a moment.

8 On Clavius' teaching see U. Baldini, "Christoph Clavius and the scientific scene in Rome", in G.V. Coyne, M. A. Hoskin and O. Pedersen (eds.), Gregorian Reform of the Calendar, Vatican City, 1983, pp. 137-69; and 'Legem impone subactis': Studi su filosofia e scienze dei gesuiti in Italia, 1540- 1632, Rome, 1992, pt. 2; J.M. Lattis, Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christoph Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology, Chicago, 1994. Our understanding of the early modern community of mathematicians and astronomers will be greatly increased by the publication of U. Baldini's and P. Napolitani's magisterial commented edition of Clavius' correspondence. 5 See C. Vasoli, La cultura delle corti, Florence, 1980, eh. 5. 10 See P.L. Rose, The Italian Renaissance of Mathematics: Studies on Humanists and Mathematicians from Petrarch to Galileo, Geneva, 1975, especially ch. 2. 11 R. Westman, op. cit., n. 1; B.T. Moran, "Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel and the aristocratic context of discovery", in T. Nickles (ed.), Scientific Discovery: Case Studies, Dordrecht, 1980, pp. 67-96; idem, "German prince-practitioners: Aspects in the development of courtly science, technology and procedure in the Renaissance", Technology and Culture, 22, 1981, pp. 253-74; J.H. Leopold, Astronomen Steme Geräte. Landgraf Wilhelm IV. und seine sich selbst bewegenden Globen, Luzern, 1986; M. Biagioli, Galileo Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism, Chicago, 1993.

16 The Place of Astronomy in Early-Modern European Culture

Astronomers and astrologers played in addition an extraordinary variety of roles outside the élite circles of university and court.12 Here we find the authors of pamphlet astrological prognostications and almanacs with their annual predictions of weather, war, disease, and apocalypse.13 Here, too, were a range of healers, from village cunning-men and women, who spiced their treatments with astrological lore, to wealthy urban astrological consultants, such as Simon Forman and John Dee, with their mercantile and noble clients.14 In the course of the century there grew up a new class of independent urban mathematical practitioners, proudly distinguishing themselves from mere artisans; their activities on occasion included astronomical instrument making, preparation and printing of tables and ephemerides, even delivery of public lectures on astronomy, alongside their more typical concerns with surveying, engineering, and architecture.15

My division of the main sites of astronomy into university, court and city simplifies a complex situation. University appointments and curricula were very often under direct or indirect court control: Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel, for example, closely supervised appointments and the curriculum at his father's new university of Marburg. And conversely, court mathematical appointments were often held concurrently with university posts or filled on university nomination.16 Mobility between sites and branches of mathematics was the rule, not the exception. For example, Ignatio Danti ( 1536-1586), the other mastermind of the Gregorian reform, started his career as a Dominican monk, then became cosmographer to Grand-Duke Cosimo I of Tuscany. In this capacity he worked on gnomonics and cartogra• phy, and gave public lectures on mathematics, including astronomy. Falling from favour with the Medici, he was employed by Gregory XIII and Sixtus IV working on calendrical matters and as an artistic/astrological advisor, being rewarded with a bishopric in 1583.17 Or consider Nicolai Reymers Baer (otherwise known as Ursus) (1551-1600). Self-educated, he started life as a swineherd, becoming in his thirty's a surveyor for the Stadtholder of Holstein,

12 My sketch of the non-élite contexts of astrology/astronomy draws on R.S. Dunn, The Status of Astronomy in Elizabethan England, 1558-1603, Ph.D. diss., Cambridge, 1992. 13 See, e.g., O. Niccoli [1987], transi. L.G. Cochrane, Prophecy and People in Renaissance Italy, Princeton, 1990, 14 On the practices of astrological medicine see A. Chapman, "Astrological medicine", in C. Webster (ed.), Health, Medicine, and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 275-300; R.S. Dunn, op. cit., n. 12. 15 See M. Biagioli, op. cit., n. 1; S. Johnston, "Mathematical practitioners and instruments in Elizabethan England", Annals of Science, 48, 1991, pp. 319-34. 16 On relations between courts and universities see, e.g., P. Baumgart, "Universitätsautonomie und landesherrliche Gewalt im späten 16. Jahrhundert", Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, 1, 1974, pp. 23-53. 17 Cf. Biagioli, op. cit., n. 1, p. 42. On Danti, see V. Marchesi, "Del Padre Ignatio Danti, matematico, cosmografo, ingegnere e architetto", in Memorie dei più Insigni Pittori, Scultori e Architetti Domenicani, Bologna, 1878-9, vol. II, pp. 351-77.

17 Nicholas Jardine

Heinrich von Rantzau, who paid for publication of his cartographic work. In the following decades he worked as a tutor to families of the middle nobility, taught mathematics briefly at the university of Strasbourg, where with financial support from the university professors he published a book of techniques of celestial triangulation along with new planetary hypotheses, was briefly supported by Landgraf Wilhelm IV, and was appointed Imperial Mathematicus in 1594. He died in office in 1600 in the midst of a savage priority dispute, to which I shall return.18 Finally, it is worth noting that the practices of astronomy in this period did not fall into anything approaching the hierarchies of power and expertise customary in modern scientific disciplines. Credibility did not flow exclusively downwards from court and university into the popular domain. On the contrary, we find university professors and court mathematicians heatedly debating the validity of prognostications of deluge, Turkish invasion, and apocalypse, which emanated from semi-literate sources; and learned analogies between the human bodily microcosm and the celestial macrocosm often reflected popular lore concerning the sympathies and antipathies of the heavenly bodies. Further, at least in the court context, the model of stable, salary-based patron-client relationships is inappropriate. Rather, power and dependence arose out of mechanisms of mutual recognition of status and honour, regulated by exchange of gifts, tokens, and services.19 In such an economy of exchange, princes often competed to secure the services of notable astronomers; and they, in turn, played patrons off against each other as they shifted and multiplied their allegiances (though few were quite as promiscuous as Ursus, whose Fundamentum astronomicum of 1588 is dedicated to over twenty patrons and intermediaries).20 As Paula Findlen has observed, patrons and clients collected and displayed each other.

18 On Ursus see J. Moller, Cimbria literata, vol. I, Copenhagen, 1744, pp. 513-18: Leopold, op. cit., n. 11, pp. 22-25, 186-92; also Ursus' preface to his Fundamentum astronomicum, Strasbourg, 1588. 19 The touchstone for this kind of interpretation is M. Mauss' classic The Gift [1923-4], transi. W.D. Halls, London, 1990. On early modern courtly gift exchange see, e.g., P. Galluzzi, "Il mecenatismo mediceo e le scienze", in ¡dee, istituzioni, scienze ed arti nella Firenze dei Medici, Florence, 1980, pp. 181-95; M. Biagioli, "Galileo's system of patronage", History of Science, 28, 1990, pp. 18-25, 38-41; S. Kettering, "Gift-giving and patronage in Early-Modern France", French History, 2, 1988, pp. 133-51. The inappropriateness of traditional patronage models to early modern aristocratic societies is argued in K.B. Neuschel, Word of Honor: Interpreting Noble Culture in Sixteenth-Century France, Ithaca (NY), 1989, ch. 1. (I thank Emma Spary for drawing my attention to this work.) 20 On multiple dedication of books see N.Z. Davies, "Beyond the market: Books as gifts in sixteenth- century France", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5, 33, 1983, pp. 69-88: P. Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, Berkeley, 1994, passim. Note that letters of dedication were themselves a courtly humanist innovation of the early sixteenth-century: see K. Schottenloher, Die Widmungsvorrede im Buch des 16. Jahrhunderts, Münster, 1953.

18 The Place of Astronomy in Early-Modern European Culture

Gifts, novelties and world-systems

Recent authors have noted ways in which the new cosmologies of the sixteenth century embodied courtly ideals. Thus Charles Trinkaus has observed how in his De rebus coelestibus of 1512 Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, secretary and ambassador of the Aragonese rulers of Naples, projected into the heavens a court society, in which the planets dance to the tunes of their master, the Sun.21 (Note that at the Neapolitan court, as at many other European courts, the courtiers danced before their ruler on ceremonial occasions). Westman has observed how in the preface to his De revolutionibus Copernicus appealed to Pope Paul III in a courtly, or rather curial, humanist language of clerical reform - promoting his new ordering of the planets as a restoration of lost order and harmony, and as a basis for the repair of the derelict calendar.22 Westman's reading is strongly confirmed by the dedication to Paul III of another new ordering of the planetary motions, Fracastoro's Homocentrica, in which the strategies of appeal to the humanist Pope are closely similar.23

A particularly striking instance of the constitution of new cosmologies by courtly values is, I believe, provided by the celestial architecture of Kepler's Astronomia nova of 1609, and Harmonice mundi of 1619. It has been suggested by others that Kepler's cosmology has Mannerist features. Otto Benesch, for example, saw Kepler's move from uniform circular motion to surging motion on an ellipse as the deformation of a classical form through Mannerist energy; and Fernand Hallyn has interpreted Kepler's ellipse as a Mannerist contrapposto between spiritual circularity and material linearity.24 More prosaically, R.J.W. Evans has presented Kepler's intuition of unity and harmony underlying the multiplicity of appearances as typical of the Mannerist vision of the cosmos.25 I suggest, however, that Kepler's cosmology is in the Prague Mannerist style in much more specific ways than these.

21 See C. Trinkaus, "The astrological cosmos and rhetorical culture of Giovanni Gioviano Pontano", Renaissance Quarterly, 38, 1985, pp. 446-72. On Pontano's cosmology see also F. Tateo, Astrologia e moralità in Giovanni Pontano, Bari, 1960; F. Bottin, " 'Strumentalismo' e 'macchinismo' nell'universo astrologico di Giovanni Pontano", in G. Roccaro (ed.), Platonismo e aristotelismo nel Mezzogiorno d'Italia (secc. X1V-XVI), Palermo, 1989, pp. 161-173. 22 R.S. Westman, "Proof, poetics, and patronage: Copernicus's preface to De revolutionibus", in D.C. Lindberg and R.S. Westman (eds.), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 167-205. 23 Homocentrica sive de stellis, Venice, 1538: in particular, Fracastoro claims that his new orbs are an apt replacement for the monstrous and indecorous eccentrics, and he suggests that "fate has somehow reserved them" for the new reformer of the Church to use in the restitution of the Calendar. 24 O. Benesch, The Art of the Renaissance in Northern Europe, London, 1945, pp. 139-43; F. Hallyn, La structure poétique du monde: Copernic, Kepler, Paris, 1987, ch. 9. 2' R.J.W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World: A Study in Intellectual History, Oxford, 1973, pp. 145-7.

19 Nicholas Jardine

First, consider Kepler's universal harmonics. In this framework, the harmonic ratios pervade the animate and inanimate worlds. They constitute beauty in music and architecture. Their perception by us and by the soul of the Earth explains the influence of the astrological aspects on worldly weather and human affairs. As seen from the Sun they constitute the underlying order in the planetary motions. Moreover, as Divine archetypes, the harmonies are innate to souls created on God's image; and it is in virtue of this that we and other souls recognise and respond to them.26 Much of this has obvious parallels in a specific Mannerist source, Danielo Barbara's commentary on Vitruvius' De architectura, illustrated by Palladio, a work which Kepler had studied in detail very early in his career. There Barbaro elaborates Vitruvius' remarks on harmony and on symmetria of parts as the basis of beauty.27 Like Kepler, he talks of a universal harmonics that pervades the macrocosm and the human microcosm, and like Kepler he traces all the harmonies back to the ideas on which the Divine Architect founded his creation.28

Kepler is Mannerist not only in the structure he assigns to the cosmos, but in his conception of the task or officium of the astronomer. The true astronomer is not a mere technician, but, like God, an artifex.29ln constructing his cosmology, he imitates nature, not in copying it, but in the Mannerist sense of imitation, emulation of the divine creative powers.30 Of course, such re-enactment of the creation is a serious matter - but it can also be playful. In his Tertius interveniens of 1610, Kepler defended some of the more fantastic elements of his cosmology against Philipp Feselius' objections. Of course, he admits, some of his astrological analogies were playful. Rightly so, because

just as God the creator has played, so he has taught Nature, his image, to play, and indeed to play the same game as he has played before her... accordingly, as God and Nature have played before, so must this playing after of the human mind be no foolish child's game, but a natural instinct implanted by God.31

26 Kepler, "Harmonice mundi" [Linz, 1619], in Gesammelte Werke, VI. On Kepler's harmonic theory see D.P. Walker, Studies in Musical Sciences in the Late Renaissance, Leiden, 1978, ch. 4; B. Stephenson, The Music of Heavens: Kepler's Harmonic Astronomy, Princeton, 1994. 27 Notably, Vitruvius, De architectura, I, 2-3 (also III, 1 ; V, 4). 28 De architectura libri decern, cum commentariis Danielis Barbari..., Venice, 1567, especially: pp. 11-14, on harmony; pp. 18-20, on symmetria; p. 25, on imitado and archetypal ideas. 29 Apologia Tychonis contra Ursum, in N. Jardine, The Birth of History and Philosophy of Science: Kepler's "A Defence of Tycho against Ursus" with Essays on its Provenance and Significance, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1988, pp. 185-6. 30 On mannerist imitano and its sources see, e.g., G.W. Pigman, "Versions of imitation in the Renaissance", Renaissance Quarterly, 30, 1983, pp. 1-32; H. Blumenberg, " 'Nachahmung der Natur': zur Vorgeschichte der Idee des schöpferischen Menschen", Studium generale, 10, 1957, pp. 276-83; E.N. Tigerstedt, "The poet as creator: origins of a metaphor", Comparative Literary Studies, 5, 1968, pp. 455-88.

31 Gesammelte Werke, IV, pp. 245-6, transi. D.P. Walker, op. cit., n. 26, p. 56.

20 The Place of Astronomy in Early-Modern European Culture

Here we have a delightful Mannerist justification of all the Mannerist caprices of Kepler's cosmology.

Not merely the forms of the new cosmologies, but the very quest for a true world system, a complete imitation of the cosmos, was, I believe, a product of courtly ethos. Many recent historians have emphasised the constitutive roles of gift exchange in the sixteenth-century court.32 Gifts were displayed as symbolic representations of power and as objects of erudite and witty conversation. It was often through presentation of gifts - books, instruments, discoveries in the case of astronomy - that positions of service at court were solicited and secured.33 As Biagioli has shown, Galileo's gift to Cosimo II of his discovery of the satellites of Jupiter, transformed into emblems of Medici dynastic power, was a spectacularly success• ful instance.34 Through exchange of gifts, highly ritualised and often highly competitive, princes and nobles achieved social distinction, maintaining their honour and mutual recognition. An example: in 1592 Hieronymus Treutier, Professor of Law at the University of Marburg, delivered a funeral oration for Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel. At the end of the oration Treutler turns to the Landgraf's astronomical activities. He praises him as a skilled practitioner and celebrates him as a patron who has emulated those great examples Julius Caesar, patron of Sosigenes' reform of the calendar, and Alfonso the Wise. He tells how the Landgraf's clockmaker, Jost Biirgi, made a wonderful gilded globe, "which in accordance with the most exact observations exactly represented the motions not only of the planets, but of the entire firmament". The Emperor Rudolf heard of the globe and requested that it and its maker be sent to him. "It is wonderful to relate", declares Treutler, "what pleasure this gave our Prince". In return, the Emperor sent a thank you letter in his own hand-writing, just eleven days before the Landgraf's death. This honourable exchange of tokens figures in the oration as the culmination of the Landgraf's life.35

The gift to Rudolf II was, on Leopold's reconstruction, a "planetary globe", combining a mechanical celestial globe with a planetary clock mounted in its base. No planetary globe by Biirgi is extant; but the surviving astronomical instruments made by him for court use - mechanical celestial globes and a planetary clock - show his productions to have been

32 Seen. 19. 33 Note that astronomical and other instruments were frequently displayed in Wunder- and Kunstkammern: see, e.g., E. Scheicher, "The collection of Archduke Ferdinand II at Schloss Ambras: its purpose, composition, and evolution", in O. Impey and A. MacGregor (eds.), The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe, Oxford, 1985, pp. 29-38; FA. Drier, "The Kunstkammer of lhe Hessean Landgraves in Kassel", in ibid., pp. 102-109; G. Kugler, "Rudolf II. als Sammler", in Prague urn 1600: Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Kaiser Rudolfs IL, Freren, Emsland, 1988, vol. 2, pp. 9-21. 34 M. Biagioli, "Galileo the emblem maker", Isis, 81, 1990, pp. 230-58. 35 H. Treutler, Oratio historica de vita et morte... Wilhelmi Hassiae Landtgravii..., Marburg, 1592, pp. 82-5.

21 Nicholas Jardine extraordinary works of art, with the full range of Mannerist virtues: grace of form, complexity of workings, unity in variety of movements, difficulty of execution, capriciousness of decoration, and, last but by no means least, extravagance of cost and conception. In a plane• tarium of 1586, as in later planetary clocks, Biirgi employed a geo-heliocentric arrangement of the planets devised by Christoph Rothmann, the Landgraf's mathematicus. In the same year he collaborated with Ursus in the construction of a planetarium representing another geo- heliocentric arrangement, one that Ursus claimed to have discovered in 1584 and later published in his Fundamentum astronomicum of 1588.36

Ursus' planetary ordering and its planetarium occasioned a long-running and violent priority dispute.37 Tycho Brahe denounced Ursus as a "filthy scoundrel" who had stolen a diagram of his planetary ordering while at Hven in the service of a noble visitor. Ursus, from his new, powerful position as Imperial Mathematicus, published counter charges of theft along with a denunciation of Tycho as a noseless syphilitic, a drunkard and a cuckold. Finally Kepler got dragged into the affair, cajoled by Tycho into writing a detailed defence of Tycho's claims to priority.

My interest is in the object of this furious dispute, with what it was to which claims of priority and ownership attached. As Kepler, writing around the turn of 1600, presented it, the dispute was about the form of the cosmos or the world system. Kepler was quite clear about the nature of a proper world system - it must give a mathematically detailed and complete account of the dispositions and motions of the planets, it must be perfectly adequate to the observations, and it must be justified by physical arguments.38 But Kepler's formulation was quite unprecedented. This was not at all how the issue of priority was presented at the outset. Specifically, Ursus was at first charged with theft of a defective sketch of Tycho's "arrangement of the planetary motions".39 In dedicating his "diagram of the system of nature representing hypothesis of the bodies of the world", on which Biirgi's planetarium was based, Ursus had dishonourably given what was not his in gift. But in the course of the dispute Tycho, and following him Kepler, raised the stakes. Tycho, writing to Kepler, charged Ursus with inability to resolve the problem of intersection of the orbs of Mars and the Sun, or to construct and demonstrate from observations detailed planetary models, especially for the

36 Leopold, op. cit., n. 11, eh. 12. 37 Full accounts of the controversy are in Jardine, op. cit., n. 29; E. Rosen; Three Imperial Mathema• ticians, New York, 1986; and O. Gingerich and R.S. Westman, The Wittich Connection: Conflict and Priority in Late Sixteenth-Century Cosmology, Philadelphia, 1988. 38 Kepler, Apologia Tychonis contra Ursum, in Jardine, op. cit., n. 29. 39 Letter of 21 Dec. 1588 to Heinrich von Rantzau (Ursus' former employer), in Tychonis Brahe opera omnia, ed. J.L.E. Dreyer, Copenhagen, 1913-29, VII, pp. 387-8.

22 The Place of Astronomy in Early-Modern European Culture

difficult case of the superior planets.40 No matter that these were challenges Tycho had not himself met; with his mighty observatories, unprecedentedly accurate instruments and armies of assistants, no one, least of all the comparatively ill-equipped Ursus, was in a position to call his bluff.41

Not surprisingly, in his riposte Ursus tried to lower the stakes, claiming that astronomical hypotheses were easily-contrived fictions designed to save the appearances, and that the hypothesis at issue had anyway been anticipated in antiquity by Apollonius of Perga.42 Kepler hit back by contrasting the architects of astronomy, philosopher-astronomers such as Copernicus and Tycho, with their socially inferior clients, mere technicians such as Ursus. Philosopher astronomers, he insisted, seek a complete, mathematically detailed, and physi• cally grounded representation of the cosmos.43 In the course of these challenges and counter challenges Tycho and Kepler had redefined the object of the dispute in Tycho's favour. The claim to priority in the construction of a world system was not the starting point of this courtly duel, but its end-product. It was, so to speak, the final challenge.

On this interpretation, the very notion of the world system - a complete physically grounded model of the cosmos - as the goal of astronomy was a product of the competitive practices of courtly exchange of gifts and novelties.

Conclusion

My conclusion is a very simple one. Early modern European astronomy was formed by its cultural settings. This was not just a matter of vastly increased patronage enabling the discipline to flourish, though that did undoubtedly happen. Nor was it just a matter of astronomical practices and doctrines reflecting the cultures in which they took place, though they undoubtedly did so. Rather, my suggestion is that the new courtly patronage of astron• omy generated a new agenda for astronomy - specifically, the quest for the true and complete world system.

411 Tycho, in Kepler, Gesammelte Werke, XIV, p. 91. 41 Cf. Gingerich and Westman, op. cit., n. 36, p. 70; N. Jardine, "How to appropriate a world-system", Journal of the History of Astronomy, 21, 1990, pp. 353-8. 42 Ursus, De hypothesibus astronomicis... tractatus..., Prague, 1597, sig. Aiii, v-Aiv, r. 43 Kepler, Apologia Tychonis contra Ursum, in Jardine, op. cit., n. 29.

23

Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage" in Italy Giuseppe Olmi

The first volume of the Ornithologia - the first naturalistic work published by Ulisse Aldrovandi from Bologna in 1599 after many decades spent studying nature - begins with a section devoted to eagles. This beginning was perfectly coherent with Aldrovandi's choice to proceed with the description of birds following an order respecting their dignitas.'1 Conscious of acting according to criteria at least partially differing from those adopted by ancient authors (e.g. Pliny) or modern ones (e.g. Piene Belon), Aldrovandi began his treatment of the subject with the birds of prey - "nobilitate reliquis longe praeferendis" - and positioned the eagle - "Avium regina" - at the top of the list. He wished to point out that in this last choice he was also encouraged by the high consideration this animal enjoyed in the eyes of the ancient philosophers and poets such as Aristotle, Homer, and Pliny.2 But, due to this descriptive order, the Bolognese scientist also had the (maybe not wholly accidental) opportunity of publicly announcing - already at the beginning of his work - his gratefulness towards one of his most important benefactors and protectors, the Grand Duke of Tuscany

1 "Cum itaque particularem omnium avium, tam ab antiquis, & recentioribus descriptarum, quam nostris diuturnis observationibus conquisitarum historiam contexendam susceperim; in huius enarratione seriem dignitati servare duxi; primumque rapacibus, tanquam nobilitate reliquis longe praeferendis, inter omnes Aves dare locum statui. Primo igitur omne id genus Avium quod aduncis est unguibus, cernibusque ut plurimum - victitat, ex nostro hoc aviario propositurus sum. Carnivora autem isthaec, cum quaedam diurna, quaedam nocturna habeantur - A diurnis igitur rapacibus auspicaturus, in primis de Aquila Avium regina, in genere, singulas statim Aquilarum species subnectens: deinde hoc eodem semper dignitatis ordine servato, de reliquis rapacium diurnorum speciebus sum acturus": U. Aldrovandi, "De ordine", in Omithologiae hoc est de avibus historiae libri XII, Bologna, 1599, p. 7. 2 "Sed me eximia illa aquilinae naturae dignitas, quae in progressu manifeste apparebit, cui veterrima apud antiquos existimatio, nee non philosophiae, ac poesios principum Aristotelis & Homeri authoritas accedit, ut inter rapaces Aquilae primas tribuam, impellit. Philosophus enim in ordine rapacium diurnarum primo loco Aquilam nominat, ultimo vero vulturem; Neque ipse Plinius, cum de Phoenice abunde dixisset, ab hoc ordine deflexit _ Quamvis enim eiusdem generis diversarum specierum nulla ordine essentiae aliam praecedat, nee una alia sit prior; sunt enim simul natura omnes species sub uno genere contentae; dignitate tarnen ac nobilitate, si species inter se, non ad genus conferantur, coeteris praeminet Aquila, quod multiplici cum animi, tum corporis dote praecoeteris Avibus sit insignita": ibidem. On the classification of birds in Aldrovandi see J.J. Hall, "The Classification of Birds in Aristotle and Early Modern Naturalists (II)", History of Science, XXIX, 1991, pp. 230-233.

25 Giuseppe Olmi

Ferdinando I de' Medici. Presenting the book's first illustration, depicting an example of the eagle species Chrysaètos, he in fact declared that he had been able to study this animal thanks to a specimen received from the Grand Duke, who had shown himself ready to satisfy a written request put forward by the naturalist:

Serenissimus Princeps Ferdinandus Medices Magnus Hetruscorum Dux, simul atque meas accepisset literas, quibus Aquilam anatomiae subijciendam, a sua Celsitudine mihi trans- mitti, obnixe petieram, cum Pisis id temporis ageret, extemplo imperavit, ut Aquilarum una, quae Florentiae Ducali magnificentia asservari soient, sive viva, sive mortua, suis sumptibus (quae eius erga bonas literas, earumque studiosos, in me vero in primis perpetua ac insignis est liberalitas, & tanto Principe digna munificentia) ad me deferretur, earn vivam ac incolumem suis mulis advectam, et caveae ligneae inclusam accepi.3

However, Aldrovandi's thanks were not only limited to the mere mention of the munificent Grand Ducal gift. In the light of the eagle's well-known symbolic-heraldic meaning the naturalist's implicit proposal was also a combination, better yet a relationship, between the Lord of Tuscany and the sign of authority par excellence. The readers of Ornithologia, or at least a good part of them, would certainly recognise that the eagle - besides, as Pliny pointed out, having constituted the insignia preferred by the Roman legions4 - was also the bird of Jove and the imperial emblem of Carl V and the Hapsburg. Whoever glanced at the text would recognise just as easily the further link between Ferdinando I and the noble animal as proposed - even if indirectly - by the naturalist, bringing to light liberalitas as a trait common to both of them.5 In short, with his text, Aldrovandi created a tightly woven net of correspondences between the gift and the donator: only a bountiful sovereign could give an animal of "royal nature"6 such as an eagle, and in particular the Chrysaètos "quae omnium nobilissima est, fuitque apud omnes semper habita... sola enim genuina est, & legitimorum natalium, omnium maxima, fortissima, nee non Aquilarum pulcherrima".7

With this line of conduct the Bolognese naturalist did nothing else but meet an engagement that he normally took on towards anyone whom he had asked for help: that is, commitment to

3 U. Aldrovandi, Ornithologiae, p. 110. The Aldrovandi's request can be read in: Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana. Carteggio e testimonianze documentarie, edited by A. Tosi, Firenze 1989, p. 384. 4 Plinius, Naturalis historia, Χ, 16. 5 U. Aldrovandi, Ornithologiae, pp. 39-40 for the eagle. 6 Ibidem, p. 39. 7 Ibidem, p. 109.

26 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage " in Italy publicly mention and praise them in his works, if they had positively replied to his requests. In 1595, for example, he wrote to Girolamo Mercuriale and stated his hope of taking part in some of the discoveries that the Medicean botanist Giuseppe Casabona would have made on a voyage to the island of Corsica, thanks to an intervention of the Grand Duke Ferdinando:

I therefore desire and beg His Serene Highness to order messer Gioseffo to let me share some of those rare things that he will find on that trip, because I shall in my writings be their trumpet, just as I am of all the things that I have had from the serene House of Medici and in particular His Most Serene Highness my lord and patron. I hope he will understand from my writings how dearly I hold him, because it is a reasonable and honourable thing that he who receives a benefit acknowledges it and announces it as best he can, seeing that one cannot reciprocate as it would be necessary. Xenophon said that the worst vice was ingratitude and therefore, not without reason, it was punished by the Persians; and as I do not want to take up the same evil habit, I honourably remember all the things that I have received and openly acknowledge those by whom I have been gratified.8

In Italian late-renaissance court culture, expressing public gratitude towards one's benefactors was a necessary and very wide-spread habit also on behalf of scientists. It was part ofthat larger strategy - often based on reciprocity, even if not on equality, of favours - which governed the relationships between patrons and clients. On patronage (in particular that of the Medici, and its mechanisms) the recent works of Mario Biagioli and Paula Findlen have provided original and important explanations, pointing out, among other things, how the protection of high- standing persons was important for the client-scientists not so much for the advantages of an economic sort that might follow from it, but because it was a most powerful and almost essen• tial means for achieving fame and prestige and even for adding credibility to one's research.9 There is no doubt, for example, that being able to expose specimens received as gifts from a prince in one's own museum or being able to describe these in a publication meant, for a naturalist, seeing impressed automatically upon one or the other also a stamp of authority,

8 Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana, pp. 416-417. 9 M. Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier. The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism, Chicago and London, 1993: P. Findlen, Possessing Nature. Museums, Collecting and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, 1994 (but the two authors have written more on the subject and some of these writings appear in the books quoted here). On Medicean patronage see also the well-balanced essay by P. Galluzzi, "Il mecenatismo mediceo e le scienze", in Idee, istituzioni, scienza e arti nella Firenze dei Medici, edited by C. Vasoli, Firenze, 1980, pp. 189-215; and regarding more specifically Galileo's relationship with Cosimo II, R.S. Westfall, "Science and Patronage. Galileo and the Telescope", Isis, LXXVI, 1985, pp. 11-30.

27 Giuseppe Olmi maybe even a kind of scientific seal.10 In 1599, Ulisse Aldrovandi prayed the Grand Ducal Secretary Belisario Vinta to intercede with Ferdinando I, asking the latter for the shipment of "some fine products of nature", in order to "honour all the more the other two parts of the Ornithologia that I wish to print".11 It goes without saying that for a scientist as well as for his work, being honoured by a prince meant not so much receiving a general seal of approval, but being placed under the protective wing of that prince and being awarded the highest esteem and consideration in the eyes of the world, "given that honour is the prize of virtue and the highest among all external goods".12 Nonetheless, once the fundamental role that the relationship between scientists and their protectors played in defining the quality and the modalities of research itself in the early modern age is accounted for, it is necessary to be careful not to slip - sometimes following the dictates of fashion - into the excess of using the category "patronage" as a unique and all pervading interpretative key or as some sort of a priori magnifying glass through which all the personages and their actions are to be studied. While in fact some studies, such as those of Biagioli and Findlen mentioned above, have shown that there are surely new, non-traditional aspects in the development of sixteenth-seventeenth century scientific research that need to be taken into

10 The fundamental role that the patron played in determining a work's success is clearly shown by Aldrovandi in the dedication of the Ornithologia to Pope Clement Vili: "Quotquod autem ab alijs de animalibus lucubrationes hactenus editae sunt, eae propemodum omnes vel Summis Pontificibus praedecessoribus tuis, vel Imperatoribus, vel Regibus, consimilibusque Serenissimis Principibus noncupatae sunt. Et quamvis in communi adagio sit, Vino vendibili non opus esse suspensa hedera: contra tarnen sese res habere videtur in hoc negocio. Siquidem lucubrationes, licet per se laudabiles, ac posteritate dignae, nisi magnorum virorum cura, authoritateque divulgentur, plerunque vel intereunt subito, vel saltem parvi fiunt. Hi enim idem litteris praestant, quod aqua lupinis; nam sicuri hoc leguminis genus ea maceratum, omnem amarorem deponit; eodem pariter modo litteras illi suo favore cuique gratiores et efficaciores efficiunt: Quod videntes viri sapientissimi, tam prisci, quam recentiores, principum authoritate doctrinam suam protexerunt. Hinc est, quod naturalis Plinij historia semper floruit, floret etiamnum, ac perpetuum florebit, quia nimirum Vespasiano Caesari dedicata est, & commissa _ Sexcentis praeterea destitueremur aureis libris, quos nunc exosculamur, non tam authoribus, quam quorum commissi sunt fidei, gratiam habentes. Sed ut coaetaneos meos appellem, Hippolytus Salvianus, mihi olim familiariter notus, suas de piscibus praestantissimas historias lucubrationes Paulo IV Pontif. Max. Andreas Matthiolus, & ipse non notus mihi tantum, sed cui plurima communicavi, commentarla in Dioscoridis de materia medica libros Maximiliano II. Imperatori, Petrus Bellonius Cenomanus de avibus historiam Gallice conscriptam Henrico II. Gallorum Regi noncupavit" (U. Aldrovandi, Ornithologiae). 11 Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana, p. 389. In a letter from 1601 Aldrovandi then stated his intentions of publishing a book on insects as well as the third volume of the Ornithologia, that of the "Waterfowl", to the Grand Duke and he wrote even more explicitly: "once in a while Your most serene Highness might have some foreign bird of the family of the water fowl, or some insect, if he could send me the picture so that I might enrich the above mentioned works with the authority of Your most serene Highness" (ibidem, pp. 391-392, italics mine). 12 S. Guazzo, La civil conversazione, vol. I, edited by A. Quondam, Modena, 1993, p. 69. Sperone Speroni himself defined honour as the "reward for the troubles of every free gentleman" (S. Speroni, "Del modo di studiare. Discorso primo", in Opere, Venezia, 1740, voi. II, p. 502).

28 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage" in Italy due consideration,13 other studies have, in my opinion, remained on the surface and were not able to grasp the complex nature of the phenomena by reducing those examined to the exclusive realm of patronage. I have in mind, for example, an essay on Galileo and the Lincei written ten years ago by the renowned scholar Richard Westfall, where such an articulated and original phenomenon as the Roman academy is simply reduced to the relationship between a prince and his clients:14 this type of relationship between Federico Cesi and the other Lincei, or many of them, certainly existed, but the institution's foundation and development - anything but linear and often quite tormented - can not be explained exclusively on this basis.15 Proceeding in this direction, that is to say analysing the relationships between scientists and power only on the inside of courtly etiquette or giving absolute priority to it, in the end means reproposing, from a different angle, a traditional and flat view of Italian science in the age of the Counterreformation. It means once again tracing a general picture dominated (with some exceptions) by conformist behaviour, simulation, obsession with form, mean fears of losing legitimation and ignoring that, in spite of countless compromises, expedients and humiliations, a considerable number of the scientists and more generally of the Italian scholars managed to carry out their own research and fulfil their own engagements. It will be necessary instead - accepting the important contributions that come from sociological investigations - not to lose sight of (and even to analyse them in minute detail) the results concretely reached by individual scientists even within an ever more rigid and hostile socio-religious context, doubtless able to dictate behaviour and impart heavy conditionings.

13 But on the "unremitting focus on patronage as the shaper of scientific careers and scientific knowledge" which characterises Biagioli's book, see the review by S. Shapin in American Historical Review, 1994, pp. 505-507. 14 R.S. Westfall, "Galileo and the Accademia dei Lincei", in Novità celesti e crisi del sapere, Proceedings of the International Congress of Galilean Studies, edited by P. Galluzzi, Firenze, 1984, pp. 189-200. 15 This is also the opinion expressed by P. Galluzzi, "The Renaissance Academies: A Commentary on Sessions I and II", in T Frängsmyr (ed.), Solomon's House Revisited. The Organisation and Institutio• nalisation of Science, Canton (MA), 1990, p. 308. The Academy's statutes, the Lynceographum, contain countless invitations to seek backing from powerful men and to always uphold good relationships with them. About the Academy's "branches", the Lycea, it is said, for example: "Habeat peculiares in Civitate, et Lycei districtu nobiles, potentesque amicos, a quibus in contingentibus res ibi Lyncea iuvari possit"; and about the librarian's duties: "Curet ubi apte Benefactoris alicuius Principis mentionem in libris faceré contigerit, fiat cum maiore, quam possibile est laude, et honore, honorifice quoque, et Lyncei cuiusvis" (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Roma, Ms Linceo, 4, "Lynceographi Pars Quarta - Partícula 5; Partícula 9"). But, as I have already pointed out elsewhere, this position cannot simply be defined as "courtly", because it was a logical consequence of Cesi's will to preserve the existence of his academy and the freedom of research, formally adapting to the situation of the times, thus avoiding any possibility of conflict or friction with the civil or ecclesiastic power (see G. Olmi, " 'Libertà di filosofare' e 'virtuose fatiche': l'Accademia dei Lincei nell'Italia della Controriforma", in L'Accademia dei Lincei e la cultura europea nel XVII secolo, Exhibition catalogue, Roma, 1991, pp. 5-6; Id., L'inventario del mondo. Catalogazione della natura e luoghi del sapere nella prima età moderna, Bologna, 1992, pp. 315-379).

29 Giuseppe Olmi

Let me stress my point of view by pausing and taking a look especially at the naturalists' attitude. Also in this case, an excessive stress on their eagerness to adapt to behavioural codices of courtly society and culture may - in a more or less explicit way - give the impression that their continuous seeking of princely favours and protection was exclusively dictated by a desire for renown and prestige. Becoming the client or protégé of a powerful person was also, if not in the first place, a necessary condition for being able to work (and for being able to publish the results of one's research subsequently). We must not forget this. It is well known that the biggest problem a naturalist of the modern era had to confront was that of being able to see, and control with his own eyes, all the natural realities of a world that had widely expanded and was still expanding due to geographic explorations. This problem could in fact be partially resolved only with the help of many others who were in a position to see unknown "things of nature" (directly or through illustrations) and who were then well enough disposed to pass on the new knowledge. In this context the court represented without any doubt the place where plants, animals and minerals from far off Occidental and Oriental lands had their highest concentration: "I have really had various new and extravagant plants, fish, and other terrestrial animals from the Indies and elsewhere and I have had them copied" wrote Francesco I de' Medici to Aldrovandi in 1586.16

Thanks to the direct relationships between sovereigns, to the diplomatic channels and to the tight-woven net of connections, the court easily became a rich container of "rare and choice things... continuously being sent... from different parts of the world". Master and guardian of these "treasures" which gave prestige and glory to his family, the prince was also a sort of doorway which gave access to knowledge: only through his benevolence could the scholar view (at least partially) the accumulated specimens or in some case, even receive them as gifts. But given the mostly unsatisfactory condition of these specimens, what the naturalists longed for above all was to consult or to possess - at least in duplicate - the portraits of ani• mals, plants, and minerals. The complete knowledge of nature, as well as the passing on of this knowledge through publishing, could in fact come about only through pictures.17 They were not a simple expedient to which to resort once in a while and unwillingly because of lack of the originals, but - as every naturalist with a minimum of experience well knew - the unreplaceable instrument which offered the possibility of overcoming once and for all the numerous (technical and geographical) obstacles that made research ever more difficult in early modern times.18 It was for example through pictures that Aldrovandi could see and study the

16 Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana, p. 295. 17 On the enormous value which Aldrovandi attributed to the pictures, see G. Olmi, L'inventario del mondo. 18 Exactly for this reason Aldrovandi never tired of inviting his noble protectors to continue promoting the depicting of nature. He wrote, for example, to Francesco I de' Medici: "Really Your Highness can do nothing more worthy and beautiful in the world, than have any kind of plant painted [...] as well as any kind of animal" (Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, Ms Aldrovandi, 6, vol. I, cc. 34-34v).

30 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage" in Italy elk, seeing that the only sample relating to this animal that he had in his museum, that is "the hoof', could not have been of much help.19 The naturalists' choice was mostly not so much that between "things" (i.e., the direct examination of samples) and their "pictures", but that between "words" (i.e., descriptions of the samples made by others) and "pictures", and it was therefore obvious that they resolutely opted for the second because of a picture's capacity of transmitting in a truer and more direct way all the aspects of reality.

Courts often kept rich iconographie archives of nature and there were painters whose job it was to continuously keep them up to date. This came about - I believe - not only because of the deep interest many sovereigns like Francesco I de' Medici, Ferdinand of Tirol or Rudolf II had for the various and strange forms of natural reality, but also because of the symbolic value inherent to the picture. It has been said about the purpose of the frescoed maps in the royal palaces that "he who portrays a territory, becomes its master, both in fact... and metaphori• cally".20 The representation on paper of samples of the three realms of nature probably had also this aim: the prince had drawings executed of the constituting parts of the world in order to have the feeling of dominating them, of keeping them under control. As a symbolic taking- complete-hold-of, one should see the so-called "Room of the Maps", which Cosimo I wanted in his new residence in Palazzo Vecchio; the project in fact foresaw among other things the representation of the constellations on the ceiling, and underneath the maps that of the plants and animals of the various countries. As Vasari reports, Cosimo wanted to "put together" all "those things of heaven and earth" in order to "measure and see them".21

But apart from the motivations that compelled the princes to commission and collect illustrations of the "things of nature", Aldrovandi furthermore knew from first-hand ex• perience that at the court of Florence many of those animals or plants of which he only had scarce and vague information or of which he possessed minimal parts - and these dried or ruined by parasites, and therefore worthless - had taken on shape or could do so easily, on

19 See Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana, p. 269. 20 M. Milanesi, "Le ragioni del ciclo delle carte geografiche -The Historical Background to the Cycle in the Gallery of Maps", in La Galleria delle Carte geografiche in Vaticano - The Gallery of Maps in the Vatican, Modena, 1994, p. 104. But on this topic it is necessary to mention the excellent works by J.B. Harley, "Maps Knowledge and Power", in D. Cosgrove and S.J. Daniels (eds.), The Iconography of Landscape. Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments, Cambridge, 1988, pp. 277-312; and "Silences and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe", Imago Mundi, XL, 1988, pp. 57-76. More generally on the metaphorical meaning of geographic maps see also J. Schulz, "Maps as Metaphors: Mural Map Cycles of the Italian Renaissance", in D. Woodward ed., Art and Cartography. Six Historical Essays, Chicago and London, 1987, pp. 97-122. 21 G. Vasari, Le opere, with new annotations and commments by G. Milanesi, Firenze, 1906, vol. VII, p. 635.

31 Giuseppe Olmi paper in tempera or water-colour, upon the prince's command. Therefore to be devoted to the Grand Dukes of Tuscany meant for him to become part of this process of visualisation of reality, to be able to actually work with the appearance of things of nature and no longer with books alone. The prince had the power to get close (and to give shape) to far away, ill- defined and confused things. The Bolognese scientist asked Francesco I for "the drawings of six types of field mice" from Poland, from "India Bersilica" the "painting true to life" of a "tapijra" (tapir); he asked him to procure from Spain, via the ambassador, the "drawing of some worthy figure" of those made in Mexico by Francisco Hernandez.22

Certainly Aldrovandi was a client of the Medicean Grand Dukes, but he did so in first place in order to see things of nature and to conduct his research work. Being able to see before and better than his scientific colleagues certainly meant acquiring enormous prestige, but one must not forget that such prestige - initially made possible also by favours of protectors - was then substantiated and so to say legitimated by the Bolognese scientist in dozens of years of tireless work. Granted that his museum, like the ones owned by other naturalists, became rich and famous also thanks to the donations of powerful people, we should not stop at this first level of analysis, exhausting ourselves by looking only into this one direction; instead, in the name of a complete historical reconstruction, it would be more beneficial to verifiy whether and how these gifts (specimen and illustrations) were then put to use in daily research; in other words, to verify whether and in what measure, notwithstanding their strong socio-symbolic significance, they were concrete instruments put to use to get to know nature. It has been widely shown that the Bolognese naturalist also used his museum in order to acquire a higher social and professional status. This becomes quite clear from the fact that he particularly highlighted (also in his "visitors books", which he updated with great care) the visits of those personalities that came from nobility or the high clergy. But these very same books or catalogues inform us that well over 60% of the visitors were scholars, physicians and apothecaries, and therefore give proof to the fact that the museum had gained great fame above all as a place for study and research.23

Aldrovandi's loyalty towards the House of Medici is also beyond doubt, but well aware of the fact that in order to get to know the immeasurable realm of nature one had to have "many friends in different places",24 he did not hesitate to ask for help to many of his colleagues as well as other lords of the peninsula, such as the Dukes of Ferrara and Urbino or the Popes Gregory XIII and Clement VIII, going so far as to ask the King of Spain, Philip II, for support via a mediator. This search for protectors did not cease and in certain ways the

22 Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana, pp. 253, 272, 294-295. 23 Aldrovandi's visitors' books have been closely studied by P. Findlen, Possessing Nature, pp. 136-146. 24 See G. Olmi, " 'Molti amici in varij luoghi': studio della natura e rapporti epistolari nel secolo XVI", Nuncius,VÌ, 1991, pp. 3-31.

32 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage" in Italy

Bolognese naturalist intensified it in old age, by when he was well known not only in Italy but also in the rest of Europe, and his authority was indisputable. If this came about, it was because - having brought to term the long phase of collecting material and putting it in order - he had gone on to that financially even more troublesome phase of publishing his extensive Natural History in several volumes; and therefore his search for protectors was above all a search for financial means in order to bring a project that spanned more or less half a century to a logical conclusion.25 In a 1595 letter to the physician and well-established member of the Medicean court, Girolamo Mercuriale, he wrote:

My Lord Mercuriale, I am in need of a grand Prince, such as the Grand Duke, who would take it upon himself to cover the printing costs of this first work [the Ornithologia] and would leave the gains to me entirely, so that I could move on to printing the other works. I would dedicate the books to him. This would be a trifle for a Prince, whereas it would be very useful to me and of great benefit to the world.26

Indeed, one should keep in mind that an editorial project such as Aldrovandi's had very high costs which were almost impossible for a private person to sustain.27 In order to publish a book with a scientific topic, and particularly a book on natural history, one not only needed typographer and paper, but also painters, engravers and miniaturists, often commissioned and paid for (as in the case of the Bolognese naturalist) already many years before the actual printing of the volume.28 Many complex problems had to be faced - those problems that in the same years Tycho Brahe also faced in Uraniborg. Brahe was able to brilliantly solve them

25 Moreover, Aldrovandi had already begun his search for protectors capable of helping him in the enterprise of printing his research much earlier. In 1576 the Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici informed his brother Francesco that the naturalist was willing to move to the University of Pisa, bringing along the manuscripts of his works, "con speranza che Vostra Altezza, sodisfatta di lui e d'esse avesse ad aiutarlo di stampar quei libri... che veramente sono cosa da principe": P. Barocchi e G. Gaeta Bertela, Collezionismo mediceo. Cosimo I, Francesco I e il Cardinale Ferdinando. Documenti 1540-1587, Modena, 1993, p. 119 (this letter was previously published by S. De Rosa, "Alcuni aspetti della 'committenza' scientifica medicea prima di Galileo", in Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell'Europa del '500, Firenze, 1983, vol. II, pp. 782-783). 26 Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana, p. 418. See p. 420 for Mercuriale's answer which certainly must have dampened Aldrovandi's hopes. 27 On the long and difficult affair of the publication of Aldrovandi's works, including the posthumous ones, see A. Sorbelli, "Contributo alla bibliografia delle opere di Ulisse Aldrovandi", in Intorno alla vita e alle opere di Ulisse Aldrovandi, Bologna, 1907, pp. 69-139; M.G. Tavoni, "Stampa e fortuna delle opere di Ulisse Aldrovandi", Atti e Memorie della Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Province di Romagna, n. s., XLII, 1991, pp. 207-224. 28 On the use of printing on behalf of scientists in the modern age see - apart from the fundamental E.L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe, Cambridge, 1979 - the excellent article by H.E. Lowood and R.E. Rider, "Literary Technology and Typographic Culture: The Instrument of Print in Early Modern Science", Perspectives on Science, II, n. 1, 1994, pp. 1-37.

33 Giuseppe Olmi also thanks to the help of King Frederick of Denmark.29 Aldrovandi, on the contrary, had strong disagreements with his typographer, he repeatedly had to come to take the "lack of paper" into account,30 and faced many difficulties in finding artists and convincing them to work exclusively and constantly for him. His writings often show both the sincere discouragement he felt with regard to the complex nature of such a typographic enterprise as well as the knowledge of the insufficiency of his financial means:

[...] if I had such an income to allow me to go ahead on my own, I would not dare to ask for help, seeing that I am magnanimous in spending for the public, as I have always done [...] but as a private person I cannot do what I would do for the public benefit if I had the help that I desire.31

It was certainly no easy undertaking to obtain direct financial help from a prince who would totally cover the costs of printing a work, also because - as Mercuriale wrote to Aldrovandi - "today the princes [are] inclined to make money, not to spend it".32 Exactly for this reason, Aldrovandi did not tire to point out a variety of ways in which his protectors or potential protectors could offer him substantial help and in exchange receive the dedication of one or more of his books. For example, in 1595 he wrote to the Genoese Bernardino Castelletti and expressed his desire that "different princes" should at their cost furnish one engraver each for "three or four years" (at that time Aldrovandi had calculated that in order to complete the projected iconographie apparatus of his Natural History it was necessary to have another 3,400 woodcuts made in addition to the 2,000 that were ready, which would cost at least

29 See J.A. Gade, The Life and Times ofThyco Brahe, Princeton (N.J.), 1947, pp. 100-102; VE. Thoren, The Lord of Uraniborg. A Biography ofThyco Brahe, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 314-316. 30 See Aldrovandi's letters to Francesco Maria II della Rovere, duke of Urbino in O. Mattirolo, "Le lettere di Ulisse Aldrovandi a Francesco I e Ferdinando I Granduchi di Toscana e a Francesco Maria II Duca di Urbino tratte dall' Archivio di Stato di Firenze", Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, s. II, LIV, 1903-1904, p. 393. See also Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana, p. 417. It must also be remembered that paper was extremely expensive in that period and such an amount represented a major part of the overall cost of publishing; see L. Febvre e H.-J. Martin, La nascita del libro, Roma- Bari, 1977, vol. I, pp. 133-135. 31 Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, Ms Aldrovandi, 66, c. 367. Also in 1577, in a letter to his older brother Teseo, after having listed a whole series of costs of research that he continuously had to affront, Aldrovandi wrote: "You know very well that if I had money left over I would spend all of it to print works, but it is never enough: so I need the help of princes to have the necessary woodcuts made; I would need at least ten thousand scudi to make the woodcuts of the six thousand pictures that I have ready" (Ms Aldrovandi, 97, c. 319).

32 Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana, p. 420.

34 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage" in Italy

6,000 scudi)." In the light of these difficulties inherent to scientific publications, it can be explained why at the beginning of the 17th century Federico Cesi also contemplated taking on the costs of printing the results of scientific research ("Lynceorum impensis") ·34 as one of the initiatives that the Accademia dei Lincei, founded by him, should take (and in the case of Galileo's Istoria e Dimostrazioni intorno alle Macchie Solari and Saggiatore actually took) in order to guarantee scientists the best working conditions.

Furthermore Aldrovandi (like many other scientists all over Europe) continuously lived in the fear that his works might be plagiarised or modified and thus lose value not only scientifically speaking but also commercially. It was therefore very important for him to obtain publishing "privileges", that is, something that comes quite close to what we today call copyrights. Also in this case, being able to count on influential protectors was absolutely indispensable. For if the protector was a prince, he also had the right to directly confer these privileges, and if the protector was a high standing personality, he could anyhow act in favour of his protegé, pressing a public authority for them. In 1598 the Bolognese naturalist asked the Duke of Parma, Ranuccio Farnese, to intervene with the government of the

33 Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, Ms Aldrovandi, 21, vol. IV, cc. 176r-180v; the letter was published by L. Frati, "Le edizioni delle opere di Ulisse Aldrovandi", Rivista delle Biblioteche e degli Archivi, n. 11, IX, 1898, pp. 162-164. This is the complete passage from the letter: "Però ho pensato di vedere, se per mezzio di qualche Prencipe potessi havere aggiuto di qualche intagliatore, perché non c'è dubbio, che ad un intagliatore solo non bastarebbero quarant'anni ad intagliare il restante delle figure, non si potendo fare più d'ottanta figure l'anno, dove ci va per anno da cento cinquanta scudi in un intagliatore, senza la spesa dei disegni. La onde mi pare che facilmente riuscirebbe che vari Prencipi mi dessero aggiuto di tre o quattro anni d'un intagliatore per ciascuno di loro, come per esempio uno ne pigliasse la cura di mantentione, uno, come sarebbe a dire, degli insetti, l'altro de' quadrupedi, l'altro de' pesci, e un altro de' serpenti; un altro delle piante, l'altro de' monstri, e così discorrendo dedicandoli poi a ciascuno l'opera, gli intagli della quale si fosse tolto per impresa di fargli intagliare. E questo sarebbe una miseria a questi signori non spendendo in tre o quattro anni più di quattrocento o cinquecento.scudi. Spendono spesse volte li quaranta e cinquantamila ducati in cose di poco utile, et in queste che li darebbero grande honore et immortalità non se ne curano, e pure si doverebbero maggiormente inanimire d'eseguire, imitando in parte le vestigie d'Alessandro Magno, il quale per fare far l'Istoria degli animali ad Aristotile, spese quasi un milione d'oro, dal che maggior lode acquistò che facesse mai in ogni altra grand'impresa. Et a ciò non solo i Prencipi sarebbero atti, ma molti Cardinali, Vescovi et Arcivescovi e Mecenati nobilissimi, che nella sua città e ricchissimi potriano abbracciare simil'impresa per havere la dedicatione et acquistarsi l'immortalità di quest'opere nuove, conseguen• done i studiosi ineffabile utilità". 34 Thus, for example, in the Linceografo the requirements of the librarian of every Liceo are clearly stated: "Typographiae praesit, eiusque invigilet ministerio, sive externa ea sit, sive opportunum Maximo Colloquio visum fuerit ad minores sumptus in aliquo magis apto Lyceo, videlicet Patavino, aut Germanico prope Francofurtum operarijs mercede ductis instituta" (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Roma, Ms Linceo, 4, "Lynceographi Pars Quarta - Partícula 9").

35 Giuseppe Olmi

Republic of Venice in order to obtain "the privilege" for the first volume of the Ornithologia.35 The next year he turned to Grand Duke Ferdinand I, by way of Belisario Vinta, asking for "the grace of the privilege [...] for ten years"36 for the same work. Of course, since the Italian peninsula was divided into different states, and since the publishing privileges conceded by one of these where only valid inside its borders, in order to protect his works in the most complete way a scholar had to make countless requests whose positive outcome mostly depended once again on the number of acquaintances and on the backing he could count on.

Granted that one person alone could not "go everywhere", i.e., carry out a complete field study, and seeing that part of nature was in princely "custody", and seeing also the problems and difficulties a scientist met when trying to gain access to the editorial channels, the following question arises: was Aldrovandi only a resolute social climber, a careerist, an able promoter of his own public image, or was he not maybe also a scholar who used all the means at his disposal in order to wind up the huge undertaking of cataloguing the whole of natural reality in the best possible way - a way we would today call professional?

In the light of what has been said so far, it does not seem out of place to simply - or realistically - see patronage also as a fundamental instrument of survival for the scientists. If the historians do not aknowledge the normality and inevitability of such a phenomenon37 (especially inside a strongly aristocratic society such as the Italian one, i.e. a society which did not offer alternative models for life and behaviour to the aristocratic ones), they would end up being caught in an excessively microscopic analysis of protector/client relationships, leaving aside the concrete fruits on the level of scientific research which the scientists were able to secure from such relationships. In other words, they would misunderstand the benevolence of high standing people that scientists were able to obtain, regarding it exclusively as an end rather than also as a means. I am convinced that the scientists' neces• sity to please a prince, or even their entrance into court, have in many cases brought about changes in the modalities and techniques used to do research (I am thinking of the rendering experiments more spectacular or theatrical, for example). Or it may have pushed them to

35 See the letter published by A. Ronchini, "Ulisse Aldrovandi e i Farnesi", Atti e Memorie delle RR. Deputazioni di Storia Patria per le Provincie dell'Emilia, n.s., part II, 1880, p. 12. The mediation with the Venetian government then came about through the brother of Ranuccio, the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese (see p. 13). 36 Ulisse Aldrovandi e la Toscana, p. 389. 37 See, for example, what Speroni wrote about the court and about the possibility, that only the powerful had, of rewarding the scholars' efforts: "This assembly [the court], even if a constraint, is not a degrading thing, but natural; seeing that the poor person naturally serves the rich, and the unfortunate the fortunate, and the arts the lords, and, most importantly, the man of learning serves the powerful one, who alone can reward the troubles that a man has gone through to learn something" (S. Speroni, "Della Corte", in Opere, vol. V, p. 416).

36 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage" in Italy

auto-discipline or to auto-censoring their behaviour. But a historian of science must never forget to verify whether this also forced the researchers to abandon or modify their primitive lines of research and therefore heavily conditioned the quality of the final products.

If Biagoli is right when he says that "patronage was... an elaborate and comprehensive system that constituted the social world of Galileo's science",38 then one must admit that all an Italian scientist could do was to put himself under the wing of a mighty lord. In the Italian aristocratic society of the 16th and 17th century, unlike in other countries, there were no political and social forces or institutions alternative to the Church, to the princes, and more generally to the patrician class (not even institutions created and controlled by the regal power like the Académie des Sciences)3'' that were at least capable of encouraging research (let alone completely financing it, which rarely happened even north of the Alps). Thus, for a scientist it was much more difficult (more difficult than in Holland or England, for example, even if I do not mean to idealise the situation in those countries) not only to obtain a certain status, but also to acquire a certain financial independence, building contacts with the working world and thus putting the fruits of their work at the disposal of the mercantile and artisan classes.

Biagioli goes on to write: "If we look at the so-called scientific revolution from the point of view of its sites of activity, we may notice (at least on the Continent) a trajectory that leads from the university to the court, and, eventually, to the scientific academy".40 In general (and in the specific case of Galileo analysed by Biagioli) this interpretation can definitely be shared. However, as far as 17th century Italy is concerned, it is necessary to point out that the last passage was inexistent or could come about only in a very limited number of cases, given the short duration, the limited activity, and the particular traits of the only two scientific academies of a certain importance: those of the Lincei and Cimento's. It was therefore inevitable that in this country, for a much longer time than elsewhere, scientists had to continue to look at the prince and the court, and to seek in them both the source of their prestige and credibility as well as real help for their research.41

38 M. Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier, p. 4. 39 A recent study analysing the positive and negative effects of the control on the academy by the sovereign and the "ministerial protectors" is A. Stroup, A Company of Scientists. Botany, Patronage, and Community at the Seventeenth-Century Parisian Royal Academy of Sciences, Berkeley-Los Angeles-Oxford, 1990. 411 M. Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier, p. 6; but the hypothesis is formulated in greater detail in the book's epilogue, pp. 353-362. 411 still have the impression, though, that in the 16th century many Italian scientists continued to teach and work in the universities, whose decadence - generally taken as granted - ought to be closer looked at, as one is invited to do by B. Dooley, "Social Control and the Italian Universities: From Renaissance to Illuminism", Journal of Modern History, LXI, 1989, pp. 205-239.

37 Giuseppe Olmi

Biagioli has very acutely shown that Galileo had well understood how only "a great prince"42 like Cosimo II could assure him "the title of philosopher - apart from that of mathemati• cian",43 that is to say, "the social legitimation he needed for himself and his work".44 This, however, does not seem to me to have been the only reason that led the scientist to move to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. In a letter from the year 1609, after having said to have spent 20 years ("and the best of my life") working hard, Galileo went on as follows: "[...] I would really like to have a bit of peace and quiet so that I could bring to an end and publish, before winding up my life, three vast works I have on my hands... [I crave] free time infinitely more than gold".45 He openly manifested this necessity of his also to Belisario Vinta while he was negotiating the conditions for his return to Florence. Galileo was tired of having to earn a living (and of wasting precious time) in Padua, giving public and private lectures. He wished to "be able to complete my works without having to worry about giving University lectures".46 If he accepted Cosimo's call (or better still, if he elaborated a strategy in order to be called), it was also because the Florentine court guaranteed working conditions (not only "more free time", but also "more serviceable craftsmen" to be put to use "on various experiments")47 as well as the possibility of earning more money than the Republic of Venice. But there is also another factor to be taken into account. Galileo had already begun offering his services to the prince Cosimo already in December of 1605, i.e. at the time when the strong tensions between the pope and Venice concerning the state's rights in religious matters (tensions which would eventually culminate in Paul V's Interdetto against the Republic) were beginning to manifest themselves. As Cozzi has correctly pointed out, this was not a mere coincidence.48 These goings-on put Galileo in a very difficult position because he did not want to become involved in a fight which entangled many of his closest Venetian friends. He started working on his project to be called to Tuscany because on the one hand he understood that neutrality had become impossible in Padua without provoking his friends' diffidence or incomprehension,

42 G. Galilei, Le opere, vol. X, Firenze, 1929-1939, p. 233. 43 Ibidem, p. 353. 44 M. Biagioli, "Galileo the Emblem Maker", Isis, LXXXI, 1990, p. 239. However, it is important to bear in mind that for Galileo the title "philosopher" more than a social value held a - so to say - ideological one. In accordance with Copernicus, he did not attribute any kind of superiority to a philosopher over a mathematician but thought a mathematician, as non-traditional researcher of the "real constitution of the universe", had the right to the name of philosopher. See M. Tonini, "Galileo, Platone e la filosofia", in P. Prini (ed.), Il neoplatonismo nel Rinascimento, Roma, 1993, pp. 234-241; idem, "Galileo copernicano", Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, LXXII, 1993, pp. 32-33. 45 G. Galilei, Le opere, voi. X, pp. 232 and 234. 46 Ibidem, p. 350. 47 Ibidem, p. 233. 48 G. Cozzi, "Galileo Galilei, Paolo Sarpi e la società veneziana", in Paolo Sarpi tra Venezia e l'Europa, Torino, 1979, pp. 165-170 (but the whole essay, pp. 135-234, is of fundamental importance for the understanding of the relationship between Galileo and the Venetian environment).

38 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage " in Italy and, on the other, because he felt that taking a definite ideological position would have been detrimental to the success of the results of his scientific research.

What is striking in the behaviour of some scientists is their "craving" for protectors: they pass from one protector to the next and solicit more than one at the same time. As we have already seen, Aldrovandi tries to acquire the goodwill of princes, popes and the senate of his home town at once. Galileo moves from Venice to the Medici court, and then his point of reference becomes Rome, with the Lincei, the Jesuits, and pope Urban VIII. One could certainly hypothesise that the two scientists did nothing else than exploit every opportunity to improve their status and to confer an always growing credibility to their work. But why not simply believe that time and time again they pursued the best conditions to work and spread their ideas and the fruit of their research? After all, Aldrovandi's main need was to find the means to finance the printing of his books. Galileo left the Republic of Venice, where he incidentally had come to great fame, both because he could not allow friends like Giovan Francesco Sagredo to involve him in the controversy against the Jesuits, and because he came to understand that in the Venetian environment the real scope of his astronomic discoveries and his determination to involve the Church in the cultural battle in favour of heliocentricism had not been understood.49 Therefore, having been "ennobled", having resolved his financial problems at the Medici court, and having received from the latter the assurance that he could dedicate himself to research without too many other duties, he aimed at Rome because he had understood that the decisive battle on the acceptance and the diffusion of Copernicus' theory would take place there.50 Thus, there was something else involved besides the desire to better his status - something that drew the scientist towards the papal town. After all, what he achieved in Florence had already something almost miraculous about it and was definitely such a high recognition of his activity to almost make hopeless - even on behalf of an ambitious scholar such as he was - any prospect that other lords of the peninsula would have conceded him more (this is true especially if one compares what other famous mathematicians had obtained, e.g. Ignazio Danti who was forced during his life to perform, also for the Medici, many different activities).

Spontaneous doubts or questions also arise regarding the princes' behaviour towards the scientists. I am, for example, not wholly convinced that at least in the first half of the modern age the princes had usually much regard for the sciences as instruments for political propaganda and for the celebration of their dynasties. Scientific discoveries had a much lesser propaganda effect than other instruments successfully tried out for long time, such as

49 See ibidem. 50 A very clear and balanced examination of the motivations for Galileo's moving around can be found in A. Battistini's introduction to G. Galilei, Sidéreas Nuncius, Venezia, 1993, pp. 9-67.

39 Giuseppe Olmi literature and above all the figurative arts. Statues, frescos or buildings had by far greater efficacy and "visibility" than the fruits of a scientist's work, which would mostly only be known in relatively limited circles.51 I am obviously aware of the fact that such a general consideration can not be valid for Galileo's specific case and this due to the fact that we know that the discovery of Jove's satellites - spread by way of the Sidereus Nuncius - had an extraordinary impact all over Europe. Be this as it may, I still feel it legitimate to wonder whether Cosimo II effectively had the capacity to completely understand the propagandist value of Galileo's book which was, for example, very different from Aldrovandi's books in which the Grand Dukes of Tuscany were repeatedly mentioned and thanked. Except for the dedication to Cosimo II "full of ceremonious verbal genuflections",52 the text of the Sidereus Nuncius always stays rigidly within the borders of scientific discourse and even seems to be marked by a new descriptive "frugality" that aims for the essential and eliminates all su• perfluous details.53 Galileo's discovery was certainly extraordinary and his initiative in presenting it as an emblem of the Medici's power and of the dynastic continuity (by naming Jove's satellites medicea sidera) was shrewd, but all of this may not have been the only reason for his call to the court in Florence. What I mean to say is simply that the requisites a scientist needed in order to come into a sovereign's grace and, therefore, to enter court were probably also different ones. Two of these that need to be pointed out (this might seem contradictory only to those who have little knowledge of scientific culture in the modern age) are: being capable of making useful discoveries, and being in possession of secreta.5* It

51 It is well known that the Tribuna built in the Galleria degli Uffizi by Francesco I was, together with the objects it contained, a spectacular allegory of the power of the Medici, explicitly connecting the ruling house to the cosmic order (the prince's power is an integrating part of, and it is an indispensable element of, the cosmic order created by God, and therefore attacking it or simply doubting it means offending the divine will and providing chaos with dramatic consequences). The message launched was therefore, under many aspects, similar to that "constructed" by Galileo, but I think there can be no doubts as to its ever more larger visibility and hold. The new octagonal room was for the Medici an extraordinary instrument for celebrations and propaganda: it was the destination of many an impressed visitor, it was repeatedly described by travellers, artists, and antiquarians and was imitated all over Europe. On the Tribuna and its meaning still fundamental are the works by D. Heikamp, "Zur Geschichte der Uffizien-Tribuna und die Kunstschränke in Florenz und Deutschland", Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, XXVI, 1963, pp. 193-268; and "La Tribuna degli Uffizi come era nel Cinquecento", Antichità viva, III, 1964, pp. 11-30. It is probably not a chance that Bandinelli, after having affirmed that Cosimo II had called to court the most famous writers, musicians, and painters (scientists are not mentioned), in his list of those works by the grand duke which would have perpetuated his memory, mentions only highly "visible" accomplishments, like the stables, buildings, port works in Livorno, the garden, jousts and shows : B. Bandinelli, Orazione, O'vero II Principe Esemplare. Sopra la vita, e morte del Serenissimo Cosimo II. G Duca di Toscana, Firenze, 1621, pp. 28 e 36-37. 52 A. Battistini, Introduction, p. 17. 53 Ibidem, pp. 15-16. On the style of the Sidereus Nuncius see also by the same author Introduzione a Galilei, Roma-Bari, 1989, pp. 33-36. 54 B.T. Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court. Occult Philosophy and Chemical Medicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen (1572-1632), Stuttgart, 1991, p. 174.

40 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage" in Italy

seems that Galileo was well aware of the existence of this type of expectation also with respect to himself. In a letter to the Grand Duke's secretary Vinta, he in fact not only claims to possess "a lot" of "peculiar secrets", but also proclaimed (hereby making it tacitly understood that he was willing to do the traditional work of mathematicians)55 that these secrets could only be used by princes "because they make and sustain wars, build and defend fortresses, and spend great amounts of money for their royal amusement".56

This way of presenting one's abilities and capacities as a scientist was certainly not very original: Giambattista Della Porta, for example, usually proclaimed from the rooftops that he knew a number of "very useful and very marvellous... secrets".57 In this way it was possible to assert one's own capacity to effectively intervene in two areas that were among the closest to the hearts of the sovereigns in the Mannerist and Baroque age. For, on the one hand, they wanted to modify reality by making themselves the masters of the cosmos' magic powers,58 and on the other, they needed a "useful" science that would resolve the countless practical 'problems that continuously appeared in the state's ordinary administration.59 As far as Galileo was concerned, he behaved very shrewdly when he bragged about the secrets he possessed (probably not giving heed to his inner convictions) and qualified his astronomical discoveries as mirabilia. It is in fact plausible that he knew about the Medicean environ• ment's interest in Paracelsus and spagyric medicine, as well as Cosimo's personal passion for chemical experiments.60

55 M. Biagioli, "The Social Status of Italian Mathematicians", Histoiy of science, XXVJJ, 1989, pp. 41- 95. 56 G. Galilei, Le opere, vol. X, p. 351. 57 This specific sentence is taken from a letter by Porta to Cardinal Federico Borromeo, which was published by G. Gabrieli, "Giambattista Della Porta. Notizia bibliografica dei suoi mss. e libri, edizioni, ecc., con documenti inediti", in Contributi alla storia della Accademia dei Lincei, voi. 1, Roma, 1989, pp. 736-737. 58 There is a rather vast bibliography on the spread of magic practices in various European courts (see, for example, the excellent study by Moran quoted in footnote 54) and therefore I shall limit myself to mentioning the clear general considerations by W. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature. Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Princeton (NJ), 1994, pp. 221-229 principally; see also "Court, Academy, and Printing House: Patronage and Scientific Careers in Late Renaissance Italy", in B.T Moran (ed.), Patronage and Institutions. Science, Technology, and Medicine at the European Court 1500-1750, Woodbridge, 1991, pp. 25-50. 59 It might be interesting to note that in some of the acclamations of Cosimo II, published when he died, the grand duke's interest for mathematics is associated with practical motivations, above all of a military nature - those very same motivations which, so it is said, many famous people had shared in the past who had been interested in the same science: B. Bandinelli, Orazione, p. 8; P. Accolti, Delle lodi di Cosimo II. G. Duca di Toscana, Firenze, 1621. 60 See P. Galluzzi, "Motivi paracelsiani nella Toscana di Cosimo II e di Don Antonio dei Medici: alchi• mia, medicina 'chimica' e riforma del sapere", in Scienze, credenze occulte, livelli di cultura, Proceedings of the International Congress, Firenze, 1982, pp. 31-62.

41 Giuseppe Olmi

We know of course that later in Florence, the "philosopher" Galileo did not carry out any mechanical activity. But one has to admit that his case was exceptional from whatever point one looks at it: in the first place because his discoveries were exceptional, but also because his hyper-sensibility "about the trappings of prestige",61 and the attention he paid to the economic aspects of the profession62 were not common. That many other mathematicians before and after him tried to ennoble themselves and their discipline has been clearly demonstrated;63 but as to the outcome of their efforts, the first impression is that those mathe• maticians were crowned with the fullest of success only or above all if they already had an aristocratic background.

In the end we are left with one query: Why did the astronomer and mathematician Galileo succeed where others, for example the naturalist Aldrovandi, had failed? In other words, why did only the activities and the discoveries in certain disciplines grant - as it were - access to a sovereign's court? Biagioli - in another brilliant essay - indirectly formulated an answer, though one that does not seem completely satisfactory.64 In short, he maintains that Galileo's extraordinary discoveries ("as he had represented them") could only be exploited by a prince because not every noble family but only a ruling family (in this case the Medici) had the right to be represented in personal relationship with Jove, i.e., as "being linked to the 'other gods' of the cosmos". The naturalists' activities and above all their research sites - museums and botanical gardens -, which proposed only a generic connection between macrocosm and microcosm were instead more likely to attract the attention (and the protection) of the nobility and the patriciate for which an exceptional gift such as Galileo's "would have been 'above the head'". One must fully agree that at the beginning of the 17th century astronomy appeared as a science of particularly spectacular results, and that these - as such - easily attracted the princes' attention for the more effective propagandist use to be obtained from them. Some doubts arise, instead, with regard to the gift's exceptional nature, even though one must keep in mind that since the times of Cosimo I the members of the Medici family were particularly attracted to the idea of being associated with Jove.65 Indeed, in comparison to the incredible and fantastic genealogies that were claimed by princely and noble families, starting with the late middle ages, on the basis of "accurate" and irreprehensible research made by "impartial"

61 M. Segre, In the Wake of Galileo, New Brunswick (NJ), 1991, p. 64. 62 Here I have in mind for example the ability with which he commercially exploited and marketed his geometric and military compass in Padua, selling the instrument and the instruction manual directly and having those students who wanted to learn how to use it pay a fee; see S. Drake, Galileo at work. His Scientific Biography, Chicago and London, 1978, p. 46; H.E. Lowood and R.E. Rider, Literary Technology, pp. 15-16. 63 See M. Biagioli, The social status. 64 M. Biagioli, "Scientific Revolution, Social Bricolage, and Etiquette", in R. Porter and M. Teich (eds.), The Scientific Revolution in National Context, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 20-21, 46n. This work offers abundant references and material, and stimulates the reader to tackle the study of the develop• ment of Italian and European science in the modern age from a new point of view.

42 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage" in Italy

historians, the denomination of four planets might not have been such an exceptional offering. For the genealogies - having been amply "proven" by documents accumulated by the scholars - were ostentatiously presented as a reality (if then, deep down inside, nobody or only few really believed them, that is quite a different matter), whereas the addition of a name would establish a tie that in any case was or could easily have seemed artificial and a posteriori. For example, the Dominican Giovanni Nanni, better known as Annius da Viterbo, a hardened forger of texts, proved at the end of the 15th century that his patron, pope Alexander VI, and the pope's family, the Borgia, were direct descendants of Isis, Osiris and the bull Apis. The papal family's heroic origins were also celebrated (with the probable consultation of Annius) in Pinturicchio's Vatican frescoes.66 With the help of well-disposed artists, poets, and men of letters many sovereigns and princes, such as Massimiliano I and the Este of Ferrara, in the 15th and 16th centuries "adopted" Hercules as their mythical ancestor.

Even the effective capacity of the princes to fully understand the exceptional nature of a scientist's work - and therefore of his gifts - must probably be analysed more carefully. In fact, it is sometimes hard to understand why a certain scientist was called to court, while others were not and thus missed the related economic benefit. At least in some cases, it is hard not to think that in the choice of the potents a certain share of randomness was involved. I think, for example, that in the second half of the 16th century Aldrovandi's work must have appeared very original and convincing, even exceptional, to princes such as Francesco and Ferdinando de' Medici who were both (especially the first) strongly interested in the world of nature. Even more so if we consider that at that time in Italy astronomy presented few credentials on the level of competition; it was, in other words, not yet capable of offering superior "gifts", or estimable as superior, with respect to those offered by other disciplines. Also the personal relations of the Bolognese scientist with his two protectors were excellent, as it is documented by Francesco's botanist, Giuseppe Casabona, with a touch of jealously: "Ulisso Aldroandi and the Mercati write to the grand duke and converse with him as if they were his brothers and even sit at his very table".67 And yet we know that, notwithstanding his longing, the naturalist was never called to the Florentine court, and also that the Grand Dukes were rather reluctant to finance his research and instead limited themselves to helping him by sending him pictures

65 Examples of this connection are the "Room of Jupiter" in Palazzo Vecchio; Jove's carriage in the Mascherata held in occasion of the wedding of Francesco and Johanna of Austria; Jove who, together with the other gods, celebrates the return of the Golden Age in one of the intermezzi put on in occasion of the wedding of Virginia de' Medici, sister of the grand duke Francesco, with Cesare d'Esté, duke of Ferrara. See G. Vasari, / Ragionamenti e le lettere edite e inedite - e la descrizione dell'apparato per le nozze del principe Francesco de ' Medici d'anonimo, Firenze, 1882, passim; R. Strong, Arte e potere. Le feste del Rinascimento 1450-1650, Milano, 1987, p. 217; M. Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier, pp. 108-110. 66 See F. Saxl, Lectures, vol. I, London 1957, pp. 186-188; E. Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition, Copenhagen, 1961 (new edition: Princeton (NJ), 1993, pp. 62-63) R. Weiss, 'Traccia per una biografia di Annio da Viterbo", Italia medioevale e umanistica, V, 1962, p. 434. 67 Quoted in G. Olmi, Molti amici in vari] luoghi, p. 17.

43 Giuseppe Olmi

of "things of nature" and specimens or by helping him in his search for artists. And although Ferdinand - who was at that time cardinal - recommended him to his brother, Francesco I, Aldrovandi did not even receive the chair at the University of Pisa he so yearned for.68

As I hope to have at least partially shown (with, I am well aware, few arguments and many queries), we are still far from having completely come to terms with the complex nature of the relationship scientist/power in the early modern age and the (possible) differences of these relations in the various national contexts - even if fascinating studies such as Biagioli's and Findlen's have supplied many answers and have opened new research perspectives.691 wish to stress - should it not have become apparent in the course of my presentation - that I have nothing to say against the view adopted by these two authors for the study of fundamental and leading fields of Italian science in the 16th and 17th centuries. On the general level (and it is not worth mentioning the minor details here) I also share their course of analysis and the conclusions they reach. I maintain, though, that it would also be useful to voice an invitation to use great care and caution, from now on, when taking the road that studies such as these have had the great merit of opening up. For that road is only seemingly wide and in descent: many dangers and pitfalls lie ahead. Of these dangers, I feel, two should be avoided. The first one, I have already gone into - maybe even in too great a detail. It consists of giving in to the temptation of focusing the historical research only on the court, on patrons, and on the scien• tists' strategies for obtaining their grace, thus overlooking the concrete results of scientific research. When studying patronage, the historian ought always to ask himself the following question: did the search for or the achievement of a superior status on behalf of the scientist also condition that person's research? And further, if the field is strictly restricted to the princes/scientists relationship, one easily falls into the trap of believing or taking for granted that a scientist's possibilities of asserting himself would have been not less but non-existent, without the credibility assured by princely protection. It will, instead, be useful to bear in mind that a prince hardly conceded anything without being able to expect some solid form of guarantee. He showed his magnanimity and his liberality only towards artists, poets, or scientists who were already appreciated for their achieved results and who therefore had a large or qualified audience. Only if they were already trustworthy could the prince have the certainty of obtaining consistent advantages from their work in terms of propaganda.

The other danger - into which a social historian can easily run - lies in the tendency to explain the developments and the changes in science only by way of the mechanical establishment of

68 See n. 25. 69 My considerations used these works as a starting point because they expressly examine the Italian reality. There are obviously other excellent studies, which contain interesting references and, even though they analyse the situation in other countries, they are useful for interpreting the goings-on in the wider European context; among these to be mentioned in particular is S. Shapin, A Social History of Truth. Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England, Chicago and London, 1994.

44 Science and the Court: Some Comments on "Patronage" in Italy causal relationships with the economic, political, and cultural contexts in which the various scientists live and work. Nobody - certainly not myself - can deny that these relationships have existed (as they continue to exist today) and that they were of remarkable importance. Be this as it may, consistent areas of contemporary historiography have repeatedly pointed out that the analysis of the complex nature of any historical phenomenon requires an open and non-mechanistic attitude, as well as giving up the prerogative of interpreting human vicissi• tudes and events through wide generalisations. The behaviour of a person certainly reflects that of everyone else living in the same social, economic, political, professional, etc. condi• tions; but the historian must also keep in mind that every action, every decision, every atti• tude presents individual characteristics. It is precisely to this "individuality" that one must give the right weight, and this means, for example, recognising the particular nature of "survival strategies" adopted by every individual inside any given political and economic system. The stronger the system is and the better equipped to secure close control, the more the techniques and the devices used by the "subjects" are diversified to escape such stifling control and to reach certain goals. In short, I think it to be advantageous for the historian of science to also consider what happened in other historical disciplines, for example in art history, which have started looking at the "social factor" a much longer time ago. Works such as those by A. Hauser, F. Antal, or M. Meiss, which are everything but coarse and superficial, are still thought to be very important and justly continue being used, but certainly they do not rouse the same enthusiasm and wide approval they met with years ago. In the light of the subsequent research, their interpretation schemes have rather been submitted to profound or even radical revisions.

As a concluding remark, I would like to warn historians studying patronage in the early modern age about another danger. This danger consists of merely pointing out a custom as old as mankind itself (and, unfortunately, still very present) and universally known, of discovering nothing other than a self-evident truth: namely, the closer one is to power, the more advantages, fame, honours, and therefore, power one acquires. The famous French physician, Gilles de Corbeil, for example, who lived at the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century had no doubts about this:

... remember that, in reality, it is still being in attendance to the prince that makes the physician's renown and makes him shine: it is the prince who covers him with honours and secures him fame, far more precious than all treasures. It then has to be added, that for the court physician, the prince's favour is an inexhaustible source of profit, insofar as it attracts countless gifts and procures him any type of honour.70

70 Aegidii Corboliensis, "De laudibus et virtutibus compositorum medicaminum", in Carmina medica, edited by L. Choulant, Leipzig, 1826, p. 197 (quoted in J. Agrimi e C. Crisciani, Malato, medico e medicina nel Medioevo, Torino, 1980, p. 199).

45

A Site of Encounter: The Emergence of the Science Museum Paula Findlen

Almost thirty years ago, Silvio Bedini published the first general survey of the emergence of the science museum in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.1 Prior to the appearance of his article, the history of scientific collecting had not yet been treated as a separate subject from the history of museums in general and even the latter field was not particularly well- developed. With the exception of Julius von Schlosser's early study of the Kunst- und Wunderkammern, David Murray's massive bibliography on early modern cabinets of curiosities, and a handful of other art historical studies, the habits of early modern collectors had attracted little attention.2 This lack of interest reflected the perceived marginality of the museum: being neither the work of art itself nor the object of scientific inquiry, it was simply the site in which such things were found and therefore secondary to the enterprise.

Since the 1980s the conjuncture of several different fields - museum studies, cultural studies and the history of science - has produced an explosion of interest in this subject. In fact, the very thing that previously inhibited work on the museums - its role as a location for the pro• duction and display of knowledge - has made it a particularly attractive subject for cultural analysis as our notions about the contexts in which ideas are generated have changed. The work of such scholars as Horst Bredekamp, Giuseppe Olmi, Krzysztof Pomian, Antoine Schnapper and the contributors to Arthur MacGregor and Oliver Impey's Origins of Museums established the museum as an important structure in early modern society.3 In the

1 Silvio Bedini, "The Evolution of Science Museums", Technology and Culture, 6, 1965, pp. 1-29. 2 Julius von Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance, Klinkhardt & Biermann, Leipzig, 1908; and David Murray, Museums, Their History and Their Use, 3 vols., James Maclehose and Sons, Glasgow. 1904. 3 Horst Bredekamp, "Antikensehnsucht und Maschinenglauben", in Forschungen zur Villa Albani. Antike Kunst und die Epoche der Aufklärung, Berlin, 1982, pp. 507-559; Krzysztof Pomian, Collectionneurs, ama• teurs et curieux: Paris et Venise, J500-1800, Gallimard, Paris, 1987; Antoine Schapper, La géant, la licorne, la tulipe: collections françaises au XVIle siècle, Flammarion, Paris, 1988; Giuseppe Olmi, L'inventario del mondo. Catalogazione della natura e luoghi del sapere nella prima età moderna, D Mulino, Bologna, 1992; and Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modem Italy, University of California, Berkeley, 1994. The two most comprehensive anthologies on early collecting are: Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor (eds.), The Origins of Museums: Cabinets of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe, Clarendon, Oxford, 1985; and Andread Grote (ed.), Macrocosmos in Micro• cosmo. Die Welt in der Stube. Zur Geschichte des Sammeins 1450-1800, Leske & Budrich, Opladen, 1994.

47 Paula Findlen museum, the materials of travel became objects of science and curiosity. Artifacts, images, and discussions of the prodigious materiality of the world helped to fuel a growing interest in natural history during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Assessing this literature and its relationship to other studies in the social history of science, we might now describe the museum as one of the primary locations in which the scientific revolution occurred, not in the hands of Galileo or Descartes but through the ministrations of the many naturalists, inventors and virtuosi who brought the museum into being. Looking at museums gives us a decidedly different picture of the learned community towards the end of the Renaissance - one in which figures such as the naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, the natural magician Giovan Battista della Porta, the cleric and inventor Manfredo Settala, and the Jesuit philosopher Athanasius Kircher become important contributors.

During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the museum was arguably the most important and innovative centre for scientific learning. While the universities responded to the changing intellectual climate by slowly modifying their curriculum to give new disciplines and new approaches some room to flourish, prior to the mid-eighteenth century they were essentially conservative institutions that sought to preserve traditional academic culture by making small compromises; moreover, they catered solely or primarily to a Latinate elite. Instead the new intellectual centres that emerged at this time attracted a more heterodox audience, often dissatisfied with the strictures of the university curriculum and eager for reform. Certainly it is not coincidental that the Accademia dei Lincei, the Roman scientific academy that met intermittently between 1603 and 1630, was essentially a network of museums between Rome and Naples, with contacts extending into northern Italy and Germany. Both museums and academies provided a necessary supplement to the scholastic culture of the universities. Yet despite the proliferation of academies, they were basically ephemeral organisations that came and went at the whims of patrons; not until the 1660s did a scientific academy survive more than a couple of decades. By contrast museums achieved some degree of permanency at an earlier stage, undoubtedly because the most prominent ones had a more clearly defined civic role that linked them to other institutions of culture. Ulisse Aldrovandi's famous "theatre of nature" in Bologna existed in one form or another for almost two centuries, when it was absorbed in the museum of the Istituto delle Scienze in 1742; from the start, it played a crucial role in the teaching of natural history at the University of Bologna. The Roman College museum, founded by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher in the 1640s, lasted until the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773. Similarly public museums such as the one added to the botanical garden in Pisa by the Grand Duke of Tuscany around 1590 existed throughout the early modern period.

Many other museums of course were as transitory as the academies. Upon the death of the originator or his immediate heirs, objects were dispersed as part of the redistribution of the family patrimony. One of the many reasons that the Accademia dei Lincei did not survive

48 A Site of Encounter: The Emergence of the Science Museum after 1630 concerned the decline of its collections. Giambattista della Porta's famous mu• seum in Naples returned to his family upon his death in 1615, despite the academy's efforts to persuade della Porta to bequeath it to the Linceans. The founder of the Lincei, Federico Cesi, died unexpectedly in 1630, without having made any material provision for his academy. Yet artifacts often found their way into other collections, creating a different sort of continuity. By the seventeenth century museums were often multi-authored, composed of the fragments of earlier collections in conjunction with the latest novelties. From this perspective, the museum was perhaps the most dynamic and durable scientific institution in early modern Europe. The sheer number of collections in many different parts of Europe, concentrated most heavily in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire, made it impossible for the museum itself to disappear completely. Instead, it constantly reinvented itself in the hands of new collectors.

In this essay, I would like to sketch out some of the features that made the museum such a resilient edifice for housing knowledge, focusing especially on the forms of power that shaped it. The success of the museum lay not only in its ability to fit the needs of a variety of different educational settings - from universities to academies to the homes of patricians - but also in its role as both a personal and a public site of knowledge. Even in its earliest conception the museum was a civic space, an extension of the world of active intellectuals who shaped science by the same principles that they defined politics. This social grounding gave the museum a conceptual clarity and political legitimacy that an academy, often associated with suspect political and religious beliefs, often could not have. It also created a model of intel• lectual collaboration that drew upon the global conventions of the humanist republic of letters and local modes of patrician interaction. Museums lay at the center of many cities and also at the heart of a new kind of scientific community. They also participated in the new geographic sensibilities of the late Renaissance, in which European consciousness of an expanding world made it all the more imperative to organize knowledge at home.

1. A world in the home

The legitimacy of the museum derived initially from its unique role in the largely pre- institutional world of early modern science in which associations among scholars were mostly informal and therefore ill-defined. Instead the museum had very precise associations. Writing in the mid-seventeenth century, the French collector Pierre Borei aptly characterised his museum as an orbis in domo, a world in the home.4 In its origin, the museum was a domestic structure, the outgrowth of the mercantile and humanist study in which scholars

4 Pierre Borei, "Catalogue des choses rares de Maistre Pierre Borei", in Les antiquités, raretés, plantes, minéraux & autres choses considérables de la Ville, & Comte de Castres d'Albigeois, Castres, 1649, p. 132.

49 Paula Findlen and patriarchs since the fourteenth century had been collecting their thoughts. Thus the museum drew upon conventions about the possession of knowledge and the housing of family treasures and secrets that had been in play for at least two centuries prior to its emergence. For precisely these reasons, we cannot understand the first science museums without exploring their origins in the domestic architecture of the Renaissance. Since museums were not auto• nomous institutions until a much later period, built for their own sake rather than out of pre• existing materials, their embedding in the home was crucial to their formulation.

Historians have often ignored the domestic location of scientific culture primarily because, over the centuries, structures such as museums, laboratories and observatories became divorced from the home and imbedded in institutions like the Royal Society of London or the Jardin des plantes in Paris.5 Yet it was precisely this original setting of the museum that made it such a powerful institution in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Quite often museums such as those of Aldrovandi in Bologna, Cesi in Rome and the apothecary Ferrante Imperato in Naples were located in the noble palaces - hardly private dwellings but conspicuous reminders of the power of display as a form of political authority.6 Accordingly, they enjoyed a level of publicity that any collection of books, natural objects and instruments in a more modest home would not have had. In doing so, they drew upon conventions about the study as an eminently civic space that had been in formation since the mid-fifteenth century. We need only think of the importance of Cosimo il Vecchio's study in Florence to recognise the close association between political power and the possession of knowledge that provided a model for collections of natural objects. Had museums been initiated anywhere but the noble palaces they might not have enjoyed a similar level of success among early modern elites. Even though we can point to exceptions to this general rule - for example, the museum of the apothecary Francesco Calzolari in Verona - they were few and far between; and Calzolari was quick to associate himself with well-positioned naturalists such as Aldrovandi and patrons such as the Gonzaga to enhance his status. In the establishment of a new model for learning, visibility and legitimacy were equally important concerns.

Different images of the study underscored the diverse ways in which it became a powerful location for knowledge. One model portrayed it as a space of solitude and secrecy. This is an image we particularly associate with the Grand Duke of Tuscany Francesco I whose studiolo

5 For more on this subject, see Steven Shapin, "The House of Experiment in Seventeenth Century England", Isis, 79, 1991, pp. 373-404; Deborah Harkness, "Managing an Experimental Household: The Dees of Mortlake and the Practice of Natural Philosophy", Isis, 88,1997, pp. 247-262; and Paula Findlen, "Masculine Prerogatives: Gender, Space and Knowledge in the Early Modern Museum", in Emily Thompson and Peter Galison (eds.), The Architecture of Science, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA), 1999. 6 Richard Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1980; and Gerard Lebrot, Baroni in città. Residenze e comportamenti dell'aristocrazia napoletana 1530-1734, Società editrice napoletana, Naples, 1979.

50 A Site of Encounter: The Emergence of the Science Museum existed in the most public building in Florence, the Palazzo Vecchio, but was not for the public - a form of power by denial and a deliberate appropriation of a formerly republican setting. Yet another model of the study presented it as the one part of the home that belonged to men and therefore provided a place for public activities. The latter became the dominant image of the museum. By the early seventeenth century the development of artifacts such as visitors' books, museum catalogues and travel reports all underscored this purpose: no other part of the home was so widely publicised nor so readily accessible to gentlemen with the right creden• tials. These practices, along with the display of curious artifacts, quickly became the hallmark of the museum as it emerged as a primary location for the pursuit of natural knowledge. When contemporaries called the Delia Porta museum in Naples "a public receptacle of virtuosi" and when Aldrovandi labelled his museum "the eighth wonder of the world", they confirmed its success as a location filled with natural, artificial and even human marvels.7

Before the museum could become a repository of the learned world, it first had to emerge from the humanist study. The canonical image of the study owes its origins to the writings of the fifteenth-century Florentine humanist Leon Battista Alberti. Not all scientific collectors found their inspiration in Alberti's architectural and domestic treatises, of course, since they appropriated a wide variety of resources in constructing their museums. But we know that in at least one particularly influential instance - the case of Aldrovandi - he not only read and owned Alberti but also possessed many of the sixteenth-century architectural treatises inspired by the Florentine humanist. What sort of image of the study did Aldrovandi find in Alberti? In his On the Art of Building, Alberti placed the study in the only part of the house controlled by men, stating: "The husband and the wife must have separate bedrooms... Off the wife's bedroom should be a dressing room, and off the husband's a library (libraria cella)."* Thus the study belonged to a gender-specific section of the household - an idea that had important ramifications for the evolution of the museum.

The absolute division between male and female space in the study foreshadowed the official absence of women in early modern museums; Aldrovandi's visitors' book, for example, contained signatures of only two women - Ippolita Paleotti and Lavinia Fontana - among over 1500 entries.9 Through this process of selection, Aldrovandi emphasised the public nature of the recording of visitors which allowed little scope for female participation. His actions shared some of the assumptions made by Alberti. In his Books on the Family (ca.

7 In Giorgio Fulco, "Per il 'museo' dei fratelli Della Porta", in // Rinascimento meridionale. Raccolta di studi pubblicata in onore di Mario Santoro, Società editrice napoletana, Naples, 1986, p. 34; Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 6192, vol. II, f. 657r. 8 Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert Tavernor, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA), 1988, p. 149. 9 Biblioteca Universitaria, Bologna (hereafter BUB), Aldrovandi, ms. 110; ms. 136, XXIV, cc. 21v-35v.

51 Paula Findlen

1434-37), Alberti further underscored the idea of the study as a masculine space which a husband should refuse to show his wife in order "to take away any taste she might have for looking at my notes or prying into my private affairs". Elaborating on why the objects of the study needed to be kept from women, he described them as "things outside the house and about the concerns of their husband and of men in general".10 Implicitly the study was in the home but not of the home. The museum also shared this sense of separation; as Borei has already told us, it belonged to the world.

The importance of the study for the formation of the identity of the male humanist - the prototype of the early collector - is borne out by the seriousness of proscriptions about this site of knowledge. Alberti felt that the study was so important that if one spent too much time away from it one's identity began to dissolve. For example, in Alberti's Momus, Jove is lit• erally undone by his decision to leave the study for the pleasures of life in the world." Similarly the protagonists of works such as the Books of the Family express the fear that losing control of one's possessions is to lose control of oneself. Such sentiments continued to be strongly felt in the late Renaissance, although they reflected less the mercantile privacy of the early Renaissance than the sense of status cultivated by patricians. In his Idea of Universal Architecture (1615), Vincenzo Scamozzi located the museum at the top of a set of "secret stairs" that led to the "consulting rooms" on the second floor. Included in these rooms was a study, placed farthest away from the stairs. Scamozzi underscored the special nature of this sector of the palace, stating: "and these rooms must be impenetrable because there one deals with the substance, faculties, honour and life of men".12 Such comments echoed Paolo Cortesi's earlier advice in the construction of a cardinal's palace that the study be created in such a way that it would "be especially safe from intrusion".13 Clearly the study imbued its occupant with a form of power beyond that of mere contemplation.

In contrast to the hermetic ideal of the study, whose power derived from its isolation and sense of completeness, the museum was an infinitely more permeable structure, capable of being opened up to the world without endangerment. We know, for instance, that many collectors - Aldrovandi, Kircher and the Milanese cleric Manfredo Settala - did allow women to visit their museums even if they did not appear in the visitors' books, in contradiction to Alberti's proscriptions. Settala even commissioned an Italian edition of his museum catalogue by Pietro Scarabelli in 1666 so that the "knights and curious women" who visited his gallery could

10 Leon Battista Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence, trans. Renée Neu Watkins, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia (SC), 1969, p. 209. 11 Leon Battista Alberti, Momo o del principe, Costa & Nolan, Genoa, 1986. 12 Vincenzo Scamozzi, L'idea della architettura universale, Venice, 1615, p. 254. 13 Paolo Cortesi, The Renaissance Cardinal's Ideal Palace: A Chapter from Cortesi's De Cardinalato, ed. and trans. Kathleen Weil-Garris and John d'Amico, Edizioni dell'Elefante, Rome, 1990, p. 85.

52 A Site of Encounter: The Emergence of the Science Museum

understand the histories of the objects - something the Latin edition by Paolo Terzago did not allow many of them to do.14 From this perspective, the museum redefined the idea of the study by making publicity rather than secrecy its primary virtue.

In many respects, the museum transformed the contents and purpose of the study while retaining certain aspects of its aura. The locked boxes containing family papers, account books and treasures became the specimen cabinets that lined the walls of museums. The inventories of family goods suggested the mechanisms for recording the contents of collections in order to preserve their meaning and value. The secrecy of familial possessions became the exuberance of public display. Rather than being "impenetrable", as Scamozzi described the study, the museum was open to qualified visitors who arrived bearing letters of introduction and gifts and exclaimed over the things they beheld; it admitted a public and derived its power from these associations. Each visitor and each artifact further removed the museum from the home, ag• grandising the sort of power with which Alberti and his contemporaries has already imbued it.

In time the museum expanded well beyond the study, becoming a distinct space that absorbed the more public functions implicated but not entirely realised in the humanist conception of the study. Describing a visit in 1576, Aldrovandi listed both a museum and a study in his family palace, indicating his decision to separate these two types of structures, some twenty years into his collecting of nature.15 In time the museum ultimately took over the home, becoming more powerful than any of the other spaces in his family palace and the central identifying feature of his reputation as Italy's most famous naturalist. As the 1610 description of Aldrovandi's museum tells us, five years after his death, visitors arriving to the museum found their way by following the trail of objects up the stairway to the second floor of the palace where they entered a vestibule framed by "some whale's bones and other marine monsters" and subsequently came to the museum.16 The inability of Aldrovandi's museum to ultimately be contained in the part of the palace for which it had been designated signalled the first step in its dissociation from the home itself. Two years before his death in 1605, Aldrovandi, fearing for the fate of his museum and all his unfinished research, donated it to the Senate of Bologna which installed it in the Palazzo Pubblico in 1617. Thus by the seventeenth century the success of early collectors in envisioning their museums as civic spaces eventually led at least a few of them to convince the local political elite and the educational institutions they patronised that housing and publicising nature was a worthy project indeed that demanded the resources of more than an individual.

14 Paolo Maria Terzago, Museo o galleria adunata dal sapere, e dallo studio del sig. Canonico Manfredo Settala nobile milanese, trans. Pietro Francesco Scarabelli, Tortona, 1666, sig. +3r. 15 BUB, Aldrovandi, ms. 35, e. 204r. 16 Cristina Scappiani and Maria Pia Torricelli, Lo Studio Aldrovandi in Palazzo Pubblico (1617-1742), Sandra Tugnoli Pattaro (ed.), CLUEB, Bologna, 1993.

53 Paula Findlen

We can observe a similar process at work in other famous museums of the period. In the case of Kircher, his museum, which began in his private quarters at the Roman College, ultimately moved to a separate part of the building to join with the donation of the Roman patrician Alfonso Donnino in 1651. Kircher's Jesuit superiors not only saw him as a likely custodian of this splendid gift to their most important college but also as someone who would enhance its glory by locating his prodigious intellectual activities in their new institutional museum, as he subsequently did.17 The success of early public donations often inspired further gifts. When the Bolognese noble Ferdinando Cospi transferred the majority of his collection to the Palazzo Pubblico in 1672, he did so in response to the success of the Studio Aldrovandi, whose activities he had observed daily during his term as Bologna's gonfaloniere in the same palace. Subsequent additions to these collections in the eighteenth century breathed new life into the antiquated cabinets of curiosities, making them meaningful according to the scientific criteria of a different age.18

The above examples illustrate the successful transition of the museum from the domestic to the civic realm. Equally revealing are instances when this did not occur. Let us return to the failure of the Accademia dei Lincei to secure a permanent institutional base for its activities. Early in the evolution of this Roman academy, Cesi and his associates aspired to create a network of "colonies" throughout the world, each organized around a house of learning that contained books, natural objects and instruments, the very image of Salomon's House in Francis Bacon's New Atlantis. Cesi failed to accomplish this even in Rome, but, at the height of his activity, he tried very hard to persuade della Porta to provide the academy with the ma• terial resources for a second colony in Naples. By the 1610s, della Porta was in the seventies - it was only a matter of time before he ceased to be an active member of the academy. In 1612 the Linceans received some sort of verbal promise from della Porta that he would "donate his entire library and study." But della Porta hesitated to put this promise on paper, making his fellow Linceans all the more anxious about the outcome.

In a letter to Francesco Stelluti in 1613, Cesi outlined the reasons why della Porta should donate his museum to the academy, hoping that Stelluti might conclude the negotiations. Fame was among the first criteria, since della Porta's name would live on through the es• tablishment of a public building with his collection in the academy's name. Cesi invoked Fulvio Orsini's generous gift to the Vatican library as an example of the success of this approach, and recalled the dissipation of Pietro Bembo's famous collection in Padua as a

17 Paula Findlen, "Scientific Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Athanasius Kircher and the Roman College Museum", Roma moderna e contemporanea, 3, 1995, pp. 625-665. 18 Giuseppe Olmi, "From the Marvellous to the Commonplace: Notes on Natural History Museums, 16th-18th Centuries", in Renato Mazzolini (ed.), Non-Verbal Communication in Science Prior to 1900, Olschki, Florence, 1993, pp. 235-278.

54 A Site of Encounter: The Emergence of the Science Museum reminder of the fragility of scholarly pursuits. He underscored the inability of most family to appreciate a scientific patrimony. Hypothesizing the tragic end of della Porta's collection if it were not donated to the academy, Cesi predicted: "it would be thrown away, it would be of little use in the home, either because it would not be used or because it would be sold and dispersed".19 His words proved all too prophetic, since della Porta's collection disap• peared as a place to visit within a few years of his death. At the same time, Cesi also echoed a common view held by many early seventeenth-century collectors who had watched the dispersion of the first generation of science museums with dismay. Custodians of the Studio Aldrovandi, for example, encouraged collectors to donate their best objects to the public museum so that "what often in private homes is either lost or treated badly may be pre• served."20

The high level of interest in della Porta's museum on the part of the Lincei reflected the success of this sort of structure by the early seventeenth century; as Cesi recognized, without permanent control of these museums, his academy could not flourish. By the early seven• teenth century, naturalists no longer saw the museum simply as a world in the home. It had already begun the process of separation that would ultimately lead to the formation of science museums such as the one belonging to the Istituto delle Scienze in Bologna, which absorbed Aldrovandi's and Cospi's collections in 1742 for the betterment of science, or the state-sponsored museums in cities such as Pavia, Turin and of course Florence, where a Cabinet of Physics and Natural History was founded in 1775 by disassembling and reinventing the grand ducal collections. That process had to be imagined before it could be realized. This is perhaps why failed projects, such as the Lincei's grandiose plan to populate the world with houses of knowledge, are so revealing of the general goal.

2. The politics of objects

The power of the museum lay not only in its sense of space, but also in the nature of the objects that it contained. In discussing the transformation of the study into the museum, we need to consider the different kinds of objects found in both places. While studies contained primarily family papers and treasures, as well as the reading and writing materials of their humanist owners, museums increasingly housed objects external rather than internal to the

19 Giuseppe Gabrieli, "Il Carteggio Linceo della Vecchia Accademia di Federico Cesi (1603-30)", Memorie della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, ser. 6, vol. 7, fase. 1-3, Rome, 1938-41 (Cesi to Galileo, 17 March 1616, and Cesi to Stelluti, spring 1613). See Giorgio Fulco, "Per il 'museo' dei fratelli Della Porta", pp. 6-8; and Giuseppe Olmi, "La colonia lincea a Napoli", in F. Lomonaco and M. Tonini (eds.), Galileo e Napoli, Guida, Naples, 1987, pp. 23-57. 20 Biblioteca Comunale dell'Archiginnasio, Bologna, ms. 1346. This theme is discussed more extensively in Paula Findlen, A Fragmentary Past: Museums and the Renaissance, Stanford University Press, Stanford, forthcoming.

55 Paula Findlen home: they constituted the museum's claim to contain the world in microcosm.21 Certainly it is no coincidence that a number of scientific collectors called their museums "theatres of nature" - a theatre was a public space that invited spectators to observe what it contained.22 The public nature of the museum derived a great deal of its power from the experience of looking at objects, and from the publicity of certain objects in collections. How things entered the museum, and what one did with them in that setting, mattered very much to the overall place of collecting in early modern society.

Scientific collections such as Aldrovandi's museum in Bologna and Kircher's gallery in Rome would have been neither so splendid nor so interesting without the steady supply of gifts from great patrons and ordinary individuals.23 Travellers, fellow scholars and collectors, physicians and apothecaries, members of the patriciate, nobles and princes all contributed to the material re-creation of nature. While the majority of gifts came from members of the humanist republic of letters, or from fellow naturalists who hunted down flora and fauna in all parts of the world, those donations coming from great patrons enjoyed the highest degree of visibility in the museum. In contrast to the eighteenth-century naturalists who argued passionately for "the equal dignity of all natural things," many Renaissance and Baroque collectors created a hierarchy of nature that reflected not only their penchant for curiosities but the degree of privilege accorded to their donors.24 Museums labels first appeared not so much to describe exhibits to viewers as to celebrate important donations - in many instances, who had given it was as, if not more im• portant than what it was. When Aldrovandi profusely thanked "the great liberality of illustrious men such as famous Cardinals, Bishops, Archbishops, Dukes, Barons, Counts, Doctors and Scholars", he reflected in descending order the men who had enriched his theatre of nature.25

Given the extent to which museums participated in political life, they provide an important measure of the relative degree of interest on the part of certain rulers in this new scientific

21 The most recent account of the Renaissance study is Dora Thornton, The Scholar in His Study: Ownership and Experience in Renaissance Italy, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1997. The classic account remains Wolfgang Liebenwein, Studiolo. Storia e tipologia di uno spazio culturale, Claudia Cieri Via (ed.), Istituto di Studi Rinascimentali, Modena, 1989. 22 On this theme, see Ann Blair, The Theater of Nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance Science, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997. 23 On gift-giving practices in the early modern museum, see Paula Findlen, "The Economy of Scientific Exchange in Early Modern Italy", in Bruce Moran (ed.), Patronage and Institutions: Science, Technology and Medicine at the European Courts 1500-1750, Boydell, Woodbridge (UK), 1991, pp. 5-24; idem, "Courting Nature," in Nicholas Jardine, James A. Secord and Emma Spary (eds.), Cultures of Natural Histoiy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), pp. 57-74; and Giuseppe Olmi, " 'Molti amici in varii luoghi': Studio della natura e rapporti epistolari nel secolo XVI", Nuncius, 6, 1991, pp. 197-246. There is a growing literature on other aspects of early modern gift-giving that is not cited here. 24 Cf. Giuseppe Olmi, "From the Marvellous to the Commonplace", p. 257. 25 BUB, Aldrovandi, ms. 92, c. llr.

56 A Site of Encounter: The Emergence of the Science Museum

culture. Almost every collector in Italy, for example, had some sort of association with the Medici in Florence. In the introduction to Lorenzo Legati's 1677 catalogue of the Cospi museum, Cospi informed readers that this collection had begun with the "beautiful things given to me by the generosity of the most Serene Princes of Tuscany".26 Cospi - kinsman to the Medici, raised partly at their court and their art agent in Bologna - enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the Florentine ruling family. He made a point of displaying no less than eight portraits of various Medici princes in addition to gifts given by various Grand Dukes. Even after the museum was transferred to the Palazzo Pubblico in Bologna, where it had ostensibly become a civic institution, grand duke Cosimo III continued to make dona• tions to it. Like the ubiquitous Medici palle, that appeared on important civic monuments in the cities that they conquered, Medicean objects were scattered throughout Italian collections as a strong reminder of the importance of this family to the preservation and enhancement of culture on the Italian peninsula.27

One did not need to enjoy blood relations with the Medici to gain their patronage. In fact, the Medici strategy of using culture as a means of publicising their image made them well attuned to the importance of the museums, which they explicitly patronised in order to expand their fame outside of Tuscany. Generations of this ruling family contributed choice artifacts to science museums. As the recent edition of Ulisse Aldrovandi's Tuscan correspondence demonstrates, Aldrovandi not only sat at the table of the Grand Duke Francesco I on his trip to Florence but enjoyed the continued patronage of both Francesco I and his brother Ferdinando I and placed their portraits in his villa, proclaiming them the new Alexanders of their day. Ferdinando found Aldrovandi's museum so fascinating that, in 1576, he attempted to persuade his brother to bring Aldrovandi and the entire collection to Pisa to increase its association with the Medici. "Truly they are princely things (cose da Principe)", he observed.28 This was the same Medici who, as Grand Duke, would found the museum in the Pisan botanical garden and fund the court botanist Giuseppe Casabona's trips to Crete.29

26 Lorenzo Legati, Museo Cospiano, Bologna, 1677, n.p. 27 The details of these relationships are discussed further in Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature, pp. 346- 392. For the close connections between the Medici family and the Cospi museum, see Edward Goldberg, Patterns in Ulte Medici Art Patronage, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1983, p. 35; and BUB, ms. 4312. 28 Stefano de Rosa, "Alcuni aspetti della 'committenza' scientifica medicea prima di Galileo", in Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell'Europa del '500, Olschki, Florence, 1983, voi. 2, p. 783 (Rome, 7 September 1576). 29 Fabio Garbari, Lucia Tongiorgi Tornasi and Alessandro Tosi, Giardino dei Semplici. L'Orto botanico di Pisa dal XVI al XIX secolo, Cassa di Risparmio di Pisa, Pisa, 1991; Lucia Tongiorgi Tornasi, "Il giardino dei semplici dello studio pisano. Collezionismo, scienza e immagine tra Cinque e Seicento", in Livorno e Pisa: due città e un territorio nella politica dei Medici, Nistri-Lischi e Pacini, Pisa, 1980, pp. 514-526; and idem, "Inventari della galleria e attività iconografica dell'orto dei semplici dello Studio pisano tra Cinque e Seicento", Annali dell'Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, 4, 1979, pp. 21-27.

57 Paula Findlen

In the mid-seventeenth century, portraits of Medici princes such as Ferdinando II and Cosimo III found their way into the Roman College museum, and Medicean instruments enlivened Manfredo Settala's gallery of mechanical marvels in Milan. Ferdinando U's cultured brother Leopoldo, patron of the Galileian Accademia del Cimento, made a point of visiting both museums on several occasions.30 During this same period, the Medici pillaged the best objects from their gallery in the Pisan botanical garden in order to enhance the glory of the grand-ducal gallery in Florence. Initially the Medici provided the model of the princely collector which naturalists such as Aldrovandi imitated; as objects arrived in Florence, duplicates would end up in the hands of various collectors allowing them to display frag• ments of the marvels that drew people to Florence. Ultimately the Medici themselves became one of the most prized objects that an early modern collector could display - they were portraits in galleries, signatures in visitors' books, names below natural objects and names engraved on Galilean telescopes, visible in every major collection between Milan and Rome. Their traces in these collections, along with the gifts of many other ruling families, serve as a strong reminder that the science museum was, even in private hands, linked to affairs of state. Had Machiavelli ever considered the possibilities of the museum as a means for enhancing a ruler's reputation, he would have surely advised the regimen of gift-giving that connected many collections through their political affiliations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The problem with objects, as bearers of historical meaning, lies in their characteristic silence. Too often, we know very little about what people did with them. In those rare instances, when collectors and their contemporaries recorded activities around objects, we learn a great deal about their potential meaning. Let me close this essay with two accounts of how objects were handled in the early modern science museum. The first, appropriately enough, concerns the arrival of an object in a museum, while the second concerns the afterlife of museum objects. Both episodes offer us a glimpse of the rich ceremonial life of scientific objects in early modern Italy.

When the Studio Aldrovandi reopened in the Palazzo Pubblico in 1617, it continued to be a centre for scientific research until the early eighteenth century. Mindful of the need to constantly replenish the museum, its custodians encouraged new gifts. Cospi's donation of his entire museum is well known, but a manuscript in the Biblioteca Comunale dell'Archi• ginnasio in Bologna preserves a lengthy list of other gifts from local notables. Only one entry, however, describes a donation in any detail. On 31 December 1647, the Bolognese patrician Giordano Ranucci Mangioli gave the Studio Aldrovandi a large and splendid crocodile. His

30 On Leopoldo's visits to Rome in 1650 and 1668, see Edward Goldberg, After Vasari: History, Art and Patronage in Late Medici Florence, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1988, pp. 19, 23; and Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Kircher, ms. 564 (X), f. 165 (Rome, 12 May 1668). On the Medici's relation with Settala, see Paolo Maria Terzago, Museo..., pp. 54-55.

58 A Site of Encounter: The Emergence of the Science Museum

goal, as the custodians recorded in their book, was "to enrich the Public Museum with exotic things". The crocodile was decorated with fronds and carried in a manner reminiscent of the Roman triumph over Egypt by four servants from Mangioli's palace to the Palazzo Pubblico in the center of the city. In transit, it attracted a crowd of spectators: "passing through the public Piazza, where a great multitude of people accompanied it out of curiosity, to the rooms of the most Illustrious Signor Gonfaloniere. From there it was transferred to the public Museum, and placed above the table in the Library".31

We know a number of things about the Bolognese crocodile that we do not normally know about the ordinary scientific specimen: not just the donor, but its manner of presentation to the museum. Invoking the tradition of courtly New Year's gifts, the date of the donation is, in itself, significant. But the specifics of the presentation are even more striking, since they combined a literary interpretation of the crocodile as the symbol of Egypt vanquished by Caesar, a popular theme in late Renaissance emblem books, with the carnivalesque crocodile who appeared in street fairs along with many other natural and human curiosities. By the mid-seventeenth century, the crocodile had become the trademark object of the cabinet of curiosities; early guidebooks displayed them prominently, hanging from the museum's ceiling, just as Mangioli's crocodile did when it was put above the table in the center of the museum library.32 The role of the gonfaloniere, who shared the governance of Bologna with the papal legate, also reminds us of the political nature of this event - a public entertainment by and for the city that yielded a spectacularly large and exotic natural specimen for the city's museum. Did the scientific content of the crocodile matter very much in this instance? Perhaps not, though in many other instances that was surely the most important reason to add another bird or telescope to the museum. To my knowledge, the custodian of the museum, Bartolomeo Ambrosini, found no place for Mangioli's crocodile in his editions of Aldrovandi's natural history. By 1649 the Studio Aldrovandi had begun to relinquish its role as a scientific centre; in effect, the publicity of the museum made it impossible to really be a place where scholars could work. Instead it had become a site devoted increasingly to display of nature and the glory of its patrons, a place that celebrated Bologna's scientific past in which Aldrovandi was one of the leading actors.

How objects exited a museum could be as important as their entrance, and it is notoriously difficult to construct the end of a museum, since they often vanished into oblivion. In Milan in 1680, Manfredo Settala's family and friends considered how they might pay tribute to this great collector after his death. Settala's relatives, the congregation of San Nazaro (where he

31 Biblioteca Comunale dell'Archiginnasio, Bologna, ms. 1346. 32 See especially the frontispiece of Ferrante Imperato's Dell'historia naturale, Naples, 1599. This subject is treated in greater detail in Paula Findlen, "Is a Crocodile a Work of Art? Seeing Objects in the Early Modern Cabinet of Curiosities", forthcoming.

59 Paula Findlen

had been a canon), and the Jesuits at the Brera College organised a public academy in his honour, a pageant celebrating Settala's work as a collector and inventor of ingenious instru• ment. Emblems decorating the College made key objects in the Settala gallery an important point of departure for a meditation on his demise. For example, an emblem portraying Settala's perpetual motion machine, its motion stilled by the hand of Death who stated, "Nothing is forever". Another depicted one of Settala's burning mirrors into which Death gazed, his scythe in flames. The emblematist commented, not without irony: "Thus the splen• dour collected vanishes" 3i Settala's gallery had become a form of memento mori that moralised his demise and the uncertain fate of his museum.

To complete this tableau, the rector and students at the Jesuit college carried all of the objects in procession from Settala's house to the Brera College where they, too, participated in the funeral ceremonies. Personified by different members of the college, the objects themselves came to life, reciting Latin epigrams in Settala's honour. Settala's speaking tube - blown by Fame - opened the ceremonies. The funeral orations that followed this pageant also addressed themselves to the objects, perhaps the most important audience for any praise of Settala since they were the source of this fame. As the Jesuit Giovan Battista Pastorini lamented in his Funeral Oration (1680), "Those same marvels, those same works that I used to see with such great delight through the gentility of Signor Manfredo, I now stare at with equal torment, for nothing seems worthy of admiration after him".34 In the absence of the collector, the meaning of his objects had become uncertain. But their political value had not yet disappeared.

Like the crocodile in the Studio Aldrovandi, the objects in Settala's museum were bearers of multiple meanings. Upon Settala's death, they acquired a whole new set of associations, in essence, becoming historical rather than living artifacts. Years later, collectors lamented the fact that the decision to use Settala's objects in his funeral ceremony had been one of the principal reasons for their demise. The museum had preserved them during his lifetime. But his death, quite literally, had destroyed them, in ways that even the collector could not have anticipated. Just as objects had a ceremonial birth in the museum, they also had a ceremonial death. In this one instance, we have an opportunity to understand how literal the concept of symbolic meaning must have been to early modem collectors and their patrons.

33 All of these emblems are discussed and illustrated in I.A. Alifer, Manfredo Septalio Academia Funebris publice habita, Milan, 1680; and Giovanni Maria Visconti, Exequiae in tempio S. Nazarii Manfredo Septalio Patritio Mediolanensi, Milan, 1680. 34 Giovan Battista Pastorini, "Orazione funebre", in Antonio Aimi, Vincenzo de Michele, and Alessandro Morandotti, Musaeum Septalianum: una collezione scientifica nella Milano del Seicento, Giunti Marzocco, Florence, 1984, p. 29.

60 A Site of Encounter: The Emergence of the Science Museum

3. Conclusion

Museums existed in a multiplicity of political contexts in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen• turies. They required the investment of an entire society in collecting nature, art and invention to thrive. In conclusion, I would like to suggest some of the ways in which early modern museums contributed to the organisation of scientific culture. First, museums successfully connected certain forms of natural inquiry to urban political culture by insisting that the ma• terial culture of science be a matter of public concern.35 Whether in a princely or a republican setting, museums became associated with the cultural aspirations of the local elite. By the seventeenth century most nobles had a museum of some sort and most patricians had at least visited a few museums and implicitly shared this tactile vision of scientific culture. The early popularity of the museum among a less scholarly audience, more interested in nature as an embodied presence than in scholastic arguments about nature, set the stage for the proliferation of museums in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As science increasingly came to matter to a general public, the museum became a focal point for the dissemination of natural knowl• edge, further emphasising the role of empirical inquiry in the study of nature. At the same time, it also preserved and enhanced the role of the scientific collector as a mediator between the world of specialized knowledge and the public dissemination of science.

Second, the political formation of the collector also contributed to the growing popularity of museums. As I have argued elsewhere, collectors were among the pre-eminent cultural brokers in early modern society.36 Collectors provided a new image of the natural philoso• pher as a man of the world; the legitimacy of their knowledge no longer lay only in textual authority but derived from their ability to command natural resources with the help of princes. The power of the museum lay in its ability to contain knowledge; the power of the collector in his ability to fill that container and interpret the results. In doing so, the collector helped to forge stronger ties between natural philosophers and princes than had existed in the previous centuries, linking scientific activities to the political and often imperial ambitions of the early modern state.

35 The idea of "public" in play in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was closely tied to the concept of res publica. In this respect, it had strongly civic connotations in late Renaissance Italian cities, in contrast to its Enlightenment reformulation as an ideal of universal access to knowledge. For an illuminating discussion of "public science" in the eighteenth century, see Jan Golinski, Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain 1760-1820, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), 1992; Larry Stewart, 77ie Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660-1750, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), 1992; and Thomas Broman, "The Habermasian Public Sphere and Science in the Enlightenment", History of Science, 36, 1998, pp. 123-149. 36 Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature.

61 Paula Findlen

Finally, the museum provided a model of continuous interaction between patrons, producers and consumers of scientific knowledge. This factor alone contributed greatly to the durability of the museum, as an institution that survived the transition from early modern to modern science. By the eighteenth century nature ceased to be uniformly curious and, accordingly, the presentation and organisation of museum objects changed. Gradually the public aspects of the museum and its research component were separated, as science moved to the interior of the museum and public education to the exterior (something that had already begun to happen in the seventeenth-century Studio Aldrovandi where the custodian's quarters were separate from the museum). But patrons and the museum-going public remained a constant and have continued to be essential to the survival of museums and to the image of the collector as an important figure in society. By the eighteenth century museums appeared with great regularity in universities, academies, and princely courts. Occasionally, they were autonomous structures, built to house a nation's knowledge as both the British Museum in London and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris were.37 By then the first science museums had either vanished or become historical artifacts themselves since they no longer met the needs of the enlightened public. Fragile in its specific form, the museum was durable in its general purpose. And it has been with us ever since, proclaiming the power of objects to hold our attention.

37 This transition is discussed in Dorinda Outram, "New Spaces in Natural History", in Nicholas Jardine et al., Cultures of Natural Histoiy, pp. 249-265. The subsequent development of the natural history museum can be traced in such works as Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science: The Development of Colonial Natural History Museum during the Late Nineteenth Century, Mc. Gill - Queens University Press, Kingston and Montreal, 1988; and Mary P. Winsor, Reading the Shape of Nature: Comparative Zoology at the Agassiz Museum, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991.

62 Unmannered Science: Natural Philosophy and Medical Practice in the Piazza William Eamon

The papers in this session have all stressed the importance for early modern science of the places where science was practised. Although courts and universities emerge as the dominant institutions, these presentations make it clear that early modern science was not driven by a single, monolithic institution. Not one, but several "scientific spaces" existed in early modern Europe.

In my contribution, I would like to offer some ideas toward expanding our notion of scientific spaces to include (for lack of a better term) popular culture. In doing so, I realise that I am proceeding against a conception of science so deeply imbedded in modem culture as to render the term "popular science" an oxymoron. For according to the dominant view, which regards science as a body of privileged knowledge boxed away from the rest of society, "popular science" is essentially equivalent to superstition.1

It seems to me that this model is particularly inappropriate to the early modern period. Not only was the distinction between science and superstition understood quite differently then versus now, but the boundary between "popular" and "elite" was much more fluid than it had ever been previously or, perhaps, would later become. The advent of printing lowered the barrier of latinity, while the commercialisation of culture gave rise to various individuals who moved back and forth between the two cultures. The presence of such "cultural amphibians" created an uneasy symbiosis between scientific and popular cultures.2 The construction of popular audiences for science and the concomitant tendency of science to seek public legitimation points to a watershed in the history of early modern science.3

1 See R. Cooter and S. Pumfrey, "Separate spheres and public places: Reflections on the history of science popularization and science in popular culture", History of Science, 32, 1994, pp. 237-67'. 2 For a detailed development of this thesis, see William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Princeton, 1994. On the notion of "cultural amphibians", see Michael McDonald, "The Secularization of Suicide in England", Past and Present, III, 1986, p. 67. 3 See Larry Stewart, The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660-1750, Cambridge, 1992.

63 William Eamon

Among the more visible of these "cultural amphibians" in sixteenth-century Italy, which will be the focus of my paper, were the so-called "professors of secrets", masters of tricks and recipes long hidden from common knowledge and now, through the "books of secrets" at last revealed to an amazed public.4 The "professors of secrets" occupied a space somewhere on the fringes of academic culture.5 They included empirics, surgeons, physicians, popular writers, and self-styled "experimenters". Their "books of secrets" - collections of recipes on everything from removing warts to dyeing textiles - were intended not just to provide practical infor• mation, but to reveal "secrets of nature" that might be extracted experimentally.

The prototype of these works is the Secreti (1555) of Alessio Piemontese, a book that was largely responsible for creating the topos of the wandering empiric, the tireless explorer who, forsaking fame and fortune, travels the world over in search of the secrets of nature, collecting them for scholars, clerics, empirics, artisans, and even peasants.6 As it turns out, Alessio was no wandering empiric at all, but was the pseudonym of a Venetian popular writer, Girolamo Ruscelli. The "secrets", Ruscelli informs us, were experiments performed in a scientific academy that he and a group of Neapolitan virtuosi had formed in Naples in the 1540s.7

Although the experiments described by Ruscelli were supposedly done in the cloistered space of a secret academy, the results were published to a broad audience. The Secreti went through more than a hundred editions and spawned scores of imitations, from compilations running to several hundred pages to mere chapbooks. The reading public of early modern Italy was swamped with "secrets".8

Several generalisations, I think, can be made about "popular science" as we encounter it in the books of secrets. First of all, it was not much concerned with theory. The professors of secrets rarely asked why particular recipes worked. They used experiments to test recipes and techniques, not to verify theories. Indeed, they were distrustful of theory, which struck them as vague, abstract, and dubious. Rejecting the "sterilities" of scholastic science, they urged following the path of pure empiricism.

Secondly, the professors of secrets insisted that theirs was a science of deeds, not mere words. The image of homo faber pervades the books of secrets. "Man is not content with

4 See William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, ch. 4. 5 The term "professor of secrets" was coined by Tommaso Garzoni, La Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, Venice, 1588. 6 Alessio Piemontese, / Secreti del reverendo donno Alessio Piemontese, Venice, 1555. 7 William Eamon and Françoise Paheau, "The Accademia Segreta of Girolamo Ruscelli. A Sixteenth- Century Italian Scientific Society", Isis, 75, 1984, pp. 327-42. 8 William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, ch. 7.

64 Unmannered Science: Natural Philosophy and Medical Practice in the Piazza

investigation", Isabella Cortese asserted, "for he strives, in putting everything into works, to make himself the Ape of Nature, indeed to supersede nature, as he tries to do that which to nature is impossible."9 The Baconian ideal of "maker's knowledge" (verum factum), the maxim of reasoning according to which to know something means knowing how to make it, found expression in popular culture through the books of secrets.10

Finally, we can detect in the books of secrets the first glimpses of a novel conception of the scientific enterprise: the concept of science as a venatio, or a hunt, an aggressive search for the "secrets of nature". Instead of viewing science as consisting solely of logical demonstra• tions, the professors tended to think of science as an exploration of unknown territory, a search for "secrets" that lay hidden in the innermost recesses of nature. According to this conception of method, it is not logic or rational argument that would guide the experimenter through nature's dense forest, but sagacity, or as Bacon later put it, "a kind of hunting by scent, rather than science."11 As Paolo Rossi noted some years ago, the conception of science as a venatio pervaded 17th century scientific discourse.12

One result of the avalanche of books of secrets was the opening up of a thriving market for "how-to" books, which was eagerly exploited by (among others) the mountebanks and ciarlatani who set up their portable scaffolds in the piazza of the major Italian cities, performed improvised comedy routines to attract a crowd, and sold their salves and nostrums to the people gathered around them. The ciarlatani, along with a host of empirics, distillers, and self-styled "experimenters", sold little chapbooks containing secrets culled from various printed recipe books. Whereas the professors of secrets had written primarily for a middle- and upper-class audience, the ciarlatani sold their booklets to the commonest readers. Their pamphlets, widely distributed in the cities and towns of Italy, propagated the attitudes and values of the professors of secrets to the people.13

9 Isabella Cortese, / Secreti... ne' quali si contengono cose minerali, medicinali, artificiose, & alchi- miche, & molte de l'arte profumatoria, appartenenti a ogni gran signora, Venice, 1574, dedication. 111 On the Idea of "maker's knowledge" in the Baconian tradition, see Antonio Perez-Ramos, Francis Bacon's Idea of Science and the Maker's Knowledge Tradition, Oxford, 1988. In addition, see William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, pp. 353-54. 11 Francis Bacon, "De augmentis scientiarum", in The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Vendam, Viscount of St. Alban, and Lord Chancellor of England, ed. J. Spedding, R.L. Ellis and D.D. Heath, New York, 1968, vol. 1, p. 633. 12 Paolo Rossi, Philosophy, Technology, and the Arts in the Early Modern Era, trans. S. Attansio, New York, 1970, p. 42. In addition, see Marta Cavazza, "Metafore venatorie e paradigmi indiziari nella fondazione della scienza sperimentale", Annali dell'Istituto di discipline filosofiche dell'Università di Bologna, 1, 1980, pp. 107-33; William Eamon, "Science as a Hunt", Physis, 31, 1994, pp. 393-432. 13 On the ciarlatani and their books of secrets, see William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, ch. 7.

65 William Eamon

The books of secrets retained elements of the refinement of high culture. However, once the secrets of nature "hit the streets" (so to speak), they completely lost their manners. In the piazza, the traits that set the books of secrets apart from academic science became amplified to point of the carnevalesque. Whereas the professors of secrets made a big point about the sterility of academic science, the ciarlatani lampooned the doctors with outrageous characterisations, such as // Dottore Graziano, holding forth with his learned platitudes. "He who is sick cannot be said to be well", Graziano would expound in a mock-serious tone, and would prove it on the analogy that he who walks cannot be said to stand still.14 The thought of a charlatan parodying a quack doctor in a comedy, then peddling his own nostrums to the audience, may at first glance seem ludicrously ironic. But the contrast between the physician's elegant but meaningless prattle and the charlatan's sure-fire remedies struck a responsive chord in the audience gathered around the mountebank. The charlatan was more deeply connected to the social realities of the people than the physician, whose medical theories were far removed from the beliefs by which most of his patients lived.

In the piazza, the experimentalism that characterised the books of secrets expressed itself in theatrical demonstrations of the potency of the nostrums being grandstanded by the ciarlatani. Thomas Coryat, an English traveller, reported seeing a charlatan in Venice "gash his naked arm with a knife so that the blood streamed out in great abundance, and afterwards he applied a certain oil to it, stanched the blood and so thoroughly healed the wound that we could not perceive the least token of a gash."15 Other ciarlatani demonstrated the virtues of magic stones and performed "experiments" with magnets and phosphorescent bodies, drawing large crowds to witness the wonders of nature.

The fascination with exotica and rarities, which historians have noted was an important aspect of the sensibility of early modem science, was as much a part of the piazza as of the court.16 In a letter to a young gentleman about to make a Grand Tour of the continent, the 17th-century English virtuoso John Evelyn advised his protégé to "procure to see experiments, furnish your• self with receipts and curiosities", all of which the young gentleman would find useful

14 See Lodovico Bianchi, Le cento e quindici conclusioni in ottava rima del plusquamperfetto Dottor Graziano Partesana da Francolino Comico Geloso, Firenze, 1587. 15 Thomas Coryat, Coiyat's Crudities, 2 vols, Glasgow, 1905, vol. 1, pp. 411-12. See also Ugo Viviani, "Ciarlatanismo medico", Rivista di storia critica delle scienze mediche e naturali, 10, 1919, pp. 103-7; and Andrea Corsini, Medici ciarlatani e ciarlatani medici, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1922. 16 On the fascination with exotica, see in particular the articles by Lorraine Daston, "Baconian Facts, Academic Civility, and the Prehistory of Objectivity", Annals of Scholarship, 8, 1991, pp. 337-63; "The Factual Sensibility", Isis, 79, 1988, pp. 452-67; and "Wunder, Naturgesetze und die wissenschafliche Revolution des 17. Jahrhunderts", Jahrbuch der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, 1991, pp. 99-122.

66 Unmannered Science: Natural Philosophy and Medical Practice in the Piazza

in experimental philosophy.17 Such "rarities" were to be found not just in the museums and private collections of wealth patrons, but also among the empirics who sold their wares in the piazza. Gulielmo Germerio, a Venetian distiller, advertised a cabinet of curiosities that included "ten very stupendous monsters, marvellous to see, among which there are seven new-born animals, six alive and one dead, and three embalmed female infants."18 Other empirics boasted exotic secrets from distant lands.19 Evelyn's protégé could even take lessons in the art of distillation from empirics such as Germerio or Andrea Fontana, a distiller who offered to teach the art to anyone interested, exchanging secret for secret.20

Like many English travellers to Italy, Evelyn had observed the ciarlatani with fascination. A phosphorus experiment performed in the Royal Society in 1671 reminded him of a mounte• bank he had seen in the Piazza Navona in Rome doing tricks with a phosphorescent ring to draw an audience, "and having by this surprising trick, gotten Company about him, he fell to prating for the vending of his pretended Remedies."21 Never before or since, Evelyn reported, had he seen such a brilliant phosphor. He always regretted not having purchased the recipe.

It was precisely to prevent such a possibility - namely, that experiments might degenerate into exhibitionism - that the Royal Society of London strived to define "neutral" spaces for experimental practice. The virtuosi tried to fix boundaries that separated experimental "matters of fact" from the flamboyant spectacles of the charlatans below, and from the dazzling demonstrations of courtly science above. For all their apparent differences, the "experiments" performed by the ciarlatani in the piazza and by the virtuosi in the courts had one thing in common: they were intended to amaze and to entertain onlookers. The pro• duction of experimental "matters of fact", on the other hand, took place in a supposedly neutral middle space governed by the code of "civility". In such spaces, "dazzling" experiments were out of place. Although demonstrations of rarities and unusual phenomena were important resources in expanding the public culture for science, the danger that

17 John Evelyn. The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, W. Bray (ed.), 2 vols., London, 1903, p. 574. 18 Gulielmo Germerio Tolosano, Gioia preciosa... Opera a chi brama la sanità utilissima & necessaria, Venice, 1604. 19 Thus Benedetto "il Persiano" supposedly translated his "marvellous occult secrets of nature" from the Persian language, while an empiric who called himself "Americano" wrote about health-giving secrets from the New World: Benedetto, detto il Persiano, / Maravigliasi, et occulti secreti naturali, Rome, Venice, Bologna, Milan, 1613; Americano, // Vero, e naturai fonte, dal quale n'esce fuori un fonte d'acqua viva di mirabili, e salutiferi secreti, Rome, Brescia, Bologna, 1608. 211 Andrea Fontana, Fontana dove n 'esce fuori acque di secreti, Venice, Bologna, Parma, Pavia, Modena, n.d. 21 John Evelyn, 77;^ Diary of John Evelyn, E.S. De Beer (ed.), 6 vols, Oxford, 1955, vol. 4, p. 253.

67 William Eamon experiments might simply bedazzle onlookers instead of enlightening them was always present.22 As one of the Fellows of the Royal Society put it, "an Artist or Experimenter, is not to be taken for a maker of gimbals, nor an observer of Nature for a wonder-monger".23

The story of how experimental spaces were defined in the Royal Society of London has been brilliantly told by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer in their book, Leviathan and the Air- Pump.2* As a footnote to that story, I would like to suggest that the effort to create disciplined and restricted spaces for experiments arose, among other things, out of the need to insure that experimental scientists would not be mistaken for mountebanks. The history of the manage• ment of science will need to take into account the science of the piazza as well as the science of the courts.

22 Jan Golinski, "A Noble Spectacle: Phosphorus ind the Public Culture of Science in the Early Royal Society", Isis, 80, 1989, pp. 11-39. 23 Michael Hunter and Paul B. Wood, "Towards Solomon's House: Rival Strategies for Reforming the Early Royal Society", History of Science, 24, 1986, p. 81 (quoting Royal Society, Miscellaneous MS 4, 72). 24 Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1985.

68 2. Cognitive and Political Organisation of Science

Modernity and Metrology Simon Schaffet*

There is one thing of which one can say neither that is one metre long, nor that is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris. But this is, of course, not to ascribe any extraordinary property to it, but only to mark its peculiar role in the language-game of measuring with a metre-rule. (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 50)

1. Metrology as nationalisation

This conference was set the task of examining the progressive nationalisation of the sciences. But nationalisation might well be understood in terms of patronage, the systematic support of a set of activities presumably judged of importance for common welfare, however locally defined. It might on the other hand be taken more literally, as a name for the way the spaces of the sciences' power become co-extensive with those of the political order. Metrology matters here because the production of standardised measures helps techniques work beyond their immediate settings. This is part of the joke in the opening of Robert Musil's tantalising and frustrating Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (1930): "there was a depression over the Atlantic. The isotherms and isotheres were fulfilling their functions. The atmospheric temperature was in proper relation to the average annual temperature, the temperature of the coldest as well as of the hottest month, and the aperiodic monthly variation in temperature. The rising and setting of the Sun and of the Moon, Venus and Saturn's rings were in accordance with the forecasts in the astronomical yearbooks. The vapour in the air was in its highest tension, and the moisture at its lowest. In short, to use an expression that describes the facts pretty satisfactorily, even though it is somewhat old fashioned: it was a fine August day in the year 1913." As Wittgenstein's contemporary, the military engineer, Machian psychologist and Ministerialrat Robert Musil understood rather well, interesting paradoxes affect this striking capacity of systems to act at a distance and turn old-fashioned customs into accurate measures. Metrologicai systems enable governance across wide areas. Yet they depend on the power of governance for their own effectiveness. And metrologists aim for autonomy from the potentially unreliable forces of social interest and natural agency - yet they claim

' I thank Will Ashworth, Bob Brain, Arne Hessenbruch, Otto Sibum and Richard Staley for their generous help and advice on the themes of this paper.

71 Simon Schaffer that therefore they can manage and direct these forces. So the analysis of the work of standardisation and integration solely in terms of a few transcendent principles is simplistic precisely because the power and reality of these principles is constructed as part of this work.1

This relation between integration and autonomy is an important component of typical accounts of modernity. Historians of the big technical systems of the Cold War have repeatedly told us how local decisions about collaboration depended on quite immediate and messily complex interests, some of them, for example, explicitly putting politics in com• mand, others keeping it at bay. Donald MacKenzie's analysis of nuclear missile guidance systems shows in detail how reliably standardised backgrounds are socially constructed. He carefully disaggregates categories such as "the state", or indeed "the state of the art", focuses on how isolation and co-ordination work, and urges that in specific settings technologies are shaped by an interest in keeping politics and technology apparently separate. In a parallel account of European nuclear physics policies, John Krige quotes a British Foreign Office note of 1953 that CERN's convention be drafted to "show to the world that the Organisation has in fact no political significance as a European body", while Dominique Pestre concludes his analysis of the 1961 debate on big accelerators by insisting that more apparently general principles - European collaboration, transatlantic competition, internal administrative rationality - were at least as much the products as the causes of local values and techniques. Significantly, the same claim is made by Alan Milward and his colleagues, who have convincingly argued against American cold war stories about European integration, pointing instead to the significance of highly local national political and economic interests in choices between strategies of further integration or relative independence. Their examples are drawn from fields where measured evaluation is most salient - fiscal policies, technological planning, juridical control.2

Once upon a time, apparently, cultures relied on local trust, on informal arrangements, on moral criteria. After metrologicai institutionalisation, the local, informal and moral was allegedly displaced by the technical, rational and impersonal. Thus in February 1993, the epistemologist Dominique Lecourt used the pages of Le Monde Diplomatique to sound a warning to Europeans about the threat of what he called "the empire of globalised technologism". It all

1 Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, Book 1, "Eine Art Einleitung", chapter 1. 2 Donald Mackenzie, Inventing Accuracy, MIT, Cambridge (MA), 1990, pp. 374-5, 396-416; Alan Milward and Vibeke Sorensen, "Independence or integration? A national choice", in Alan Milward et al., The Frontier of National Sovereignty, Routledge, London, 1993, pp. 1-32; John Krige, "Why did Britain join CERN?", in David Gooding et al. (eds.), The Uses of Experiment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989, p. 404; Dominique Pestre, "Monsters and Colliders in 1961", in Frank James (ed.), The Development of the Laboratory, Macmillan, London, 1989, pp. 240-1. For modernity and evaluation, see T.M. Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995.

72 Modernity and Metrology

went sour, he reckoned, because the Americans "turned their back on Britain at the very moment when modern science took off'. Therefore, Lecourt inferred, scientific epistemology never found a real home in the United States, and into this void oozed logical positivism and technological triumphalism, and their unpleasant companions, new age mysticism and populist anti-scientism. Lecourt called Europeans to arms against transatlantic "parascien- tific practices which mix up science and religion for the greater profit of the multinationals of credulity". More interesting even than this remarkable rallying cry was the premise of Lecourt's vision of a truly original European scientific culture. In Europe "modern science affirmed its internationalism from the start", he writes, but then something went wrong. In the mid-twentieth century virtuous internationalism degenerated into aggressive uniformity. Standardisation somehow destroyed standards. "Directed and administered for goals sup• posedly uniformly quantifiable in experimental terms, science has since then lived the essentials of its life in quite another universe of thought". Expositor of Bachelard and Althusser, Lecourt's views are interesting mainly because they imply a contrast between primitive and virtuous (European) internationalism and degenerate and modern techno• logical (American) utilitarianism. The stories which follow are supposed to challenge that silly contrast, but also to explain its apparent plausibility, through a very different history and political economy of standardisation.3

2. Metrology as commodification

This history would combine a detailed analysis of metrological institutions' spatialisation with an explanation of their autonomy. This means rethinking the political economy of values' geography and the role of the state in these values' power. "The state framework, and the state as framework", Henri Lefebvre reminds us, "cannot be conceived of without reference to the instrumental space that they make use of. Each new form of political power", he continues, "introduces its own particular way of partitioning space, its own particular administrative classification of discourses about space and about things and people in space". Lefebvre's highly influential argument, taken up by Michel Foucault and David Harvey, was designed to dissolve facile antitheses between liberal and authoritarian accounts of the state, or, in metrological terms, between standards as locally generated or as centrally imposed. A further necessary reorientation is chronological, to understand that the modernist predica• ments of imperially global standards often hinged on prior conflicts of state formation and commodity production in early modern Europe.4

3 Dominique Lecourt, "Repenser la science", Le Monde Diplomatique, February 1993, p. 25. See also Dominique Lecourt, Promethée, Faust, Frankenstein, Synthelabo, Le Plessis-Robinson, 1996. 4 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Blackwell, Oxford, 1991, p. 281. See also Michel Foucault, "Space Knowledge and Power", in Paul Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader, Pantheon, New York, 1984, pp. 239-56; David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodemity, Blackwell, Oxford, 1990, pp. 254-9.

73 Simon Schaffer

Baroque societies deliberately cultivated interactions between metrology, machinery, law and finance. John Brewer's recent account of the "military-fiscal state" undermines traditional pictures of a weak and decentralised British polity of the eighteenth century, emphasising instead not only the ability of the state to raise huge sums to pay for almost continuous warfare, but also an excise network large by contemporary European standards and staffed by an unusually extensive cadre of revenue officers expert in "measuring, calculating and accounting", thus linking the arts of governance to those of commercial capital. Metrology's status in this society hinged on the reduction of disorder through calculation and a "politics of information" which reflected "a widely held desire to push out into the public sphere knowledge previously arcane, obscure or private".5 In the 1670s the natural philosopher Robert Boyle designed what he called a hydrostatical assay instrument destined, as he announced, to distinguish true coins: "there is no need to have either exact scales, or skill in hydrostatics, or any knowledge of arithmetic, and yet the difference of a true guinea from a counterfeit will be conspicuously made to appear". These techniques, adopted by Isaac Newton in the 1690s for the newly reformed Royal Mint in London, became relevant to the Excise when the scale of proof spirit was developed after 1688 as a measure of alcoholic strength. In 1725 a brandy prover working at the London Customs House, John Clarke, adapted Boyle's instrument as a hydrometer to standardise these measures, presented it through Newton's Royal Society to the Excise Commissioners. In late eighteenth century Export Acts, the use of Clarke's device was enforced by law. Fierce debates about its reliability raged at the century's end. The Royal Society was once again used a tribunal for more reliable instruments, culminating not only in a new hydrometric design in 1816 but also the appearance of a range of standard devices saccharometers, standardised stills, and eventually the formation of a central Excise Laboratory in 1842. Significantly, this lab's legal saccharometers were made by Robert Bate, who also designed screw standards for machine tools and, from 1824, calculators for setting prison treadmills so the prisoners' labour could be rendered nearly uniform at every prison. Reformers urged the standardisation of gaol labour and tobacco quality, while critics insisted that no law should "diminish that reliance on themselves which individuals should exercise for their own security". They legitimately pointed to the well-known vagaries of assessments of purity of commodities like spirits and tobacco, the state systematically centralised its measures and its control over these trades. Chemical stations were set up throughout the country: tobacco came under the microscope: alcohol became a laboratory product. Extraordinary provisions were made not merely to discipline and assess the trade in these commodities, but the quality of the analysts themselves, through strict examination and central policing. These were some of the very first trained and professional laboratory scientists in Britain. Scientists like

5 John Brewer, The Sinews of Power, Unwin Hyman, London, 1989, p. 230; and "The Eighteenth-century British State", in Lawrence Stone (ed.), AH Imperial State at War, Routledge, London, 1994, p. 61.

74 Modernity and Metrology

Faraday were agents in this process. The history of the construction of proof spirit and good tobacco is a history of the systematic, and often contested, production of a knowable space of metrological technique and personnel.6

As an example of the natural philosophical implications of these standardised commodities, consider the exchanges in 1729 between the Amsterdam instrument maker Daniel Fahrenheit and his patron, the Leyden professor Hermann Boerhaave: "no-one has until now observed... that one kind of glass expands more than another. What first led me to this discovery," Fahrenheit recalled, "was that when I arrived here in Amsterdam, I had to use Amersfoort glass instead of German or Potsdam glass to make thermometers". Boerhaave and other customers complained that Fahrenheit's instruments were unreliable. Fahrenheit acknowledged the problem. "Recalling that all quicksilver sold here in Holland comes from the same mines and is thus the same kind as is purchased in Germany, I could not conceive that the quicksilver was possibly the origin of the difference, which led me to decide that the difference must be due to the expansion of the glass. To reassure myself in this respect, I instructed the travelling Bohemian glass merchants on several occasions to bring me some glass tubes from Bohemia. They promised to do so, but failed to keep their promise, telling me that the danger of breaking tubes on the long journey was too great, and that they had greater profit and less risk with their beer glasses". When a new glass factory opened in Amsterdam, Fahrenheit found that thermometers made from its glass also varied. "I became completely certain that the difference in the readings was caused simply and solely by the differing expansion of the glass, for as chance would have it, a small tube of Thuringian glass came into my hands". Fahrenheit's big trouble was the insecure relation between glass output, quality and standards. He had to make himself into a connoisseur to become a metrologist. "It has indeed also been my experience that Amsterdam glass (I am not referring here to the mirror glass which is made here, because I have not examined it) has not always softened or melted in the same degree, and I have also found differences in its expansion, for this glass factory having frequently changed hands, the composition of the glass has also frequently changed, and therewith its expansion, as I have several times discovered to my great frustration, harm and sorrow".7

6 Robert Boyle, "A New Essay-Instrument", Philosophical Transactions, 10, 1675, p. 331; John Clarke, "A new kind of hydrometer", Philosophical Transactions, 36, 1730, pp. 277-79; P.W. Hammond and H. Egan, Weighed in the Balance: A History of the Laboratory of the Government Chemist, HMSO, London, 1992, pp. 2-32. For Bate's prison machines see Alan Morton and Jane Wess, Public and Private Science, Science Museum, London, 1993, pp. 552-3; for gauging and mathematics, see Judith V. Grabiner, "Some disputes of consequence: Maclaurin among the molasses barrels", Social Studies of Science, 28, 1998, pp. 139-68. For the whole career of Excise and assaying in this period, see William J. Ashworth, Between the trader and the public: defining measures and markets in eighteenth century Britain, forthcoming. 7 Fahrenheit to Boerhaave, 30 March 1729, in P. van der Star (ed.), Fahrenheit's Letters to Leibniz and Boerhaave, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1983, pp. 145-9.

75 Simon Schaffer

What was happening through metrological technique in eighteenth-century glass-houses, docks, breweries and farms, was also taking place elsewhere in eighteenth century markets. William Reddy's brilliant discussion of changes in the commodification of cloth in France around 1789 is salient here. He contrasts a trade dictionary produced by an eighteenth century royal customs officer, Savary de Bruslon, with a dictionary published under the Orléans mon• archy by a bankers' consortium. The ancien régime text presupposed that cloth buyers would be connoisseurs, cunning judges of the geography of cloth and of a rich taxonomy of structure, weave and feel. The early nineteenth century text was far more concerned with production, weight, technique. Spatial variation was now discussed not in terms of ineffable qualities of cloths but of the industrial complexes whence they stemmed. Reddy insists that this change was not a mere consequence of technical advance, but of an entire reworking of the sense of the commodity, underpinned by new criteria and techniques of valuation.8 These standard values for commodity quality were also decisive resources in the sciences. Consider, for example, the energetic discussions amongst early eighteenth century electrical experimenters about variations in cloth quality, where real connoisseurship of dyestuffs, silks and woollens was a prerequisite for competent performances and their replication, and where we should not be at all surprised that Francis Hauksbee, Stephen Gray and Charles Dufay were all expert protagonists of the dyestuff and cloth trades. Gray's celebrated "knack" in electrifying with silks grew directly from his manual artistry as a silk-dyer, while Dufay was charged with management of the nationalised Gobelins works. Compare, too, the painstaking con• struction by mid-eighteenth century servants of the Habsburgs in Italy and the Empire of an entire technology of measures of air quality, a set of eudiometric machines and field trips destined to provide a metrology to bolster socio-economic reform, subvert priestcraft, and help the Grand Duchy of Tuscany plant tobacco in the Maremma. These tests measured the phlogiston content of different air samples. Bad air would become a metrological and me• teorological fact, and, under the skilful moralising of Pietro Leopoldo's government experts, it could be seen just how precisely aerial and social corruption were correlated.9

The establishment of a social order which could conceivably produce reliable and transportable techniques and results required a regulated network of commodity exchange, and, in turn, helped secure it. In a recent analysis of eighteenth-century British metrology, Julian Hoppit insists on the local and incremental interests of standardisation, the political commitment to

8 William Reddy, "The structure of a cultural crisis: thinking about cloth in France before and after the Revolution", in Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The social life of things, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986, pp. 261-84. 9 Simon Schaffer, "Experimenters' techniques, dyers' hands and the electric planetarium", Isis, 88, 1997, pp. 456-83; and Schaffer, "Measuring virtue", in Andrew Cunningham and Roger French (eds.), The medical enlightenment of the eighteenth century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 281-318.

76 Modernity and Metrology

reworking cultural particularism, and confirms the linkage between metrology and the status of the commodity. The tobacco leaf whose commodity status depended on tight government regulation of barrel size, imposed and resisted in Virginia plantations and the London and Glasgow docks, ultimately became a reliable commodity through the stringency of the Excise laboratories of the early 19th century. And the leaf also became part of the purchasing system of the French Farmers General, who monopolised its import from Virginia via Glasgow. It was thus the stock-in-trade of such pre-eminent eighteenth century fiscal experts as Antoine Lavoisier, who inspected tobacco outlets, controlled the excise on goods entering the capital, monitored inflows and outflows of goods through his excise wall round Paris, and helped plan a national munitions industry. In Lavoisier's case, as Charles Gillispie puts it, this was "the spirit of accountancy raised to genius". Yet Anders Lundgren reminds us of the ideological role this accountancy could play: "Lavoisier relied on a rhetoric of numbers". He "made good use of the eloquence of the balance when arguing for a new chemistry". This was because "the complication of chemical reality, which could not be idealised, might have compromised the rhetoric". The capacity of metrologies to be extended through social spaces had to be accompanied by the secure removal of these metrologies from pollution by the customs of these spaces.10

3. Metrology as machinofacture

This is certainly the message of the now-classic study of the social meaning of metrology, Witold Kula's Measures and Men, which received a welcome translation in 1983 under the auspices of Annales ESC. Kula's detailed analysis of European cultures' passage from traditional, embodied measures to abstracted, universal and metric systems, charted the dehumanising drive for objectivity, and found its key moment in Revolutionary France. Kula argued that "the metre has transformed an instrument of man's inhumanity to man into means of understanding and co-operation for mankind. For the metre's final victory, two conditions had to be satisfied: the equality of men before the law, and the alienation of the commodity". The politics are unmistakable. Kula ended his work with a "postscript in favour of prefects". Against Chateaubriand's ferocious post-Revolutionary assault on the "petty tyranny" of the metric Jacobins, Kula sang the praises of the measured state: "the prefects shall seek and achieve, in the area of their administrative competence, further unification of

"•Julian Hoppit. "Reforming Britain's Weights and Measures, 1660-1824", English Historical Review, 1993, pp. 82-104. For the tobacco trade between Glasgow and Paris see T.M. Devine, The Tobacco Lords, Donald, Edinburgh, 1975, pp. 34-48, 62-68. For Lavoisier see C.C. Gillispie, Science and Polity in France at the end of the Old Regime, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1980, pp. 58-65; Anders Lundgren, "The Changing Role of Numbers in 18th Century Chemistry", in T Frangsmyr et al. (eds.), The Quantifying Spirit in the Eighteenth Century, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1990, pp. 259-60.

77 Simon Schaffer ever new perceptions among men. And in the end, a time will come when we shall all understand one another so well, so perfectly, that we shall have nothing further to say to one another".11 This Utopian metrological quietus has not yet quite been reached.

Kula's story stops with the prefects' metre. Did he suppose that metrology's path was then secured forever? Probably not, though this has often been metrologists' dream, notably in the Revolutionary culture he lauded. Thus Mona Ozouf's examination of the Revolutionary festivals tells of utopian projects for an open space without qualities, a symbolic dégagement which would allow proper values to proliferate without being transformed. The puzzle was artificially to engineer sites where local emplacement would no longer be apparent.12 The telling verb is "engineer". Superbly acute on the role of the commodity exchange abstraction, Kula has rather little to say about machinofacture, and finds it "bizarre", for example, that a Norman cahier de doléances prepared in summer 1789 simultaneously demanded "the end of tax farming, and also that cotton-weaving machines be done away with: and may it also be decreed that there be one measure in the whole province".13 This neat juxtaposition of taxation, cotton machinery and measures is, of course, symptomatic of the political, scien• tific and military conjuncture of the post-Revolutionary world. Standardisation was at once the technical obsession and the political and moral problem. In 1785 Thomas Jefferson, American minister in Paris, visited an abortive Paris gunshop where the principle of standard interchangeable parts was in operation. In the same year he wrote a famous pamphlet insisting that the new American state, "the chosen people of God", should "let our work• shops remain in Europe" lest technology corrupt them. In the 1790s, Eli Whitney in quick succession sketched both a cotton gin and a mechanised armoury system, but the techniques of interchangeability and mass production which simultaneously sustained a slave economy in the Southern states, the cotton manufacturers of Lancashire, and the arms industry of New England took decades to develop from these early projects. At the end of this decade, just back from the United States, Marc Brunei began his collaboration with Bentham and with the London precision engineer Henry Maudslay to set up at Portsmouth an entire mass-production system of standardised pulley blocks for the Royal Navy, the chief counter-Revolutionary force in Europe, using the income gathered by William Pitt's excise system to shatter with a combination of military discipline and metrological control an entire traditional culture in the dockyards' wooden world. But strict military control over

" Witold Kula, Measures and Men, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1986, pp. 123, 286-88. Compare Ken Alder, "A Revolution to Measure: The Political Economy of the Metric System in France", in M. Norton Wise (ed.), The Values of Precision, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995, pp. 39-70. 12 Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution, Harvard UP, Cambridge (MA), 1988, pp. 126-57. 13 Witold Kula, Measures and Men, pp. 219-20.

78 Modernity and Metrology

the dockyards effectively prevented the application of these production lines outwit Portsmouth's confines.14

Standardised manufacture during the early nineteenth century was never unchallenged nor irresistible, but this new culture was the site for the reconstruction of scientific metrology. Industrial standards emerged in the south London workshops of Maudslay's automatic system, where engineers such as Clement, Whitworth and Nasmyth learnt then plied their trades with powered lathes, precision screws and plane surfaces. An example was the development in 1841 by Whitworth of a screw standard in terms of pitch and size. These workshops were also the immediate source of the most visible public emblems of such standardisation, such as the London-based mathematician Charles Babbage's calculating machines, his innovative panoptic notation for representing mechanical and proletarian performance, and his pamphlets for universal "tables of the constants of nature and art".15 Nineteenth-century scientific metrology cannot be understood without this political econ• omy of machine tools and their military and industrial applications. Swiss watchmakers gained dominance of the early nineteenth century world market, David Landes argues, partly through the construction of dedicated Chronometrie observations at Geneva and Neufchatel to contest the power of the Greenwich Observatory network. The electric system of time distribution launched along the Greenwich telegraph lines was not more important than this Swiss observatory and workshop system in the standardisation and denaturing of time. In Prussia, as Eric Brose shows, military commitment to establishing command over the production process, spearheaded by the Army's Commission on Science and Technology, was patent in Dreyse's tests and then mass-production of needle guns from 1840. At the same time, with the same technological systems of rotating lathes and precision screws, instrument makers provided Prussian astronomers such as Friedrich Bessel with micrometer devices which set new standards for celestial and terrestrial data production. Hence emerged, for example, very different French and German systems of precision standards in geodesy, astro• nomy and surveying. Technological choices like these were accompanied by profoundly important changes in the techniques of discipline and control, whether through barrack drill

14 L.T.C. Rolt, Tools for the Job, Science Museum, London, 1986, pp. 96-97, 148-51; for Whitney see Merrit Roe Smith, "Eli Whitney and the American System of Manufacture", in C.W. Pursell (ed.), Technology in America, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA), 1981, pp. 45-61 ; for Jefferson see John Kasson, Civilizing the Machine, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1977, p. 16; for Portsmouth see Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1991, pp. 371-401. 15 L.T.C. Rolt, Tools for the Job, pp. 99-129; A.E. Musson, "Joseph Whitworth and the Growth of Mass Production Engineering", Business Histoiy, 17, 1975, pp. 109-49; Simon Schaffer, "Babbage's Intelligence: Calculating Engines and the Factory System", Critical Inquiry, 21, 1994, pp. 203-27; William Ashworth, "Memory, Efficiency and Symbolic Analysis: Charles Babbage, John Herschel and the Industrial Mind", Isis, 87, 1996, pp. 629-53.

79 Simon Schaffer or error analysis in the mathematics seminars. Solidarity counted, and was maintained through accounting. Marie-Françoise Jozeau writes of Bessel's techniques: "these measures were designed more to incite agreement amongst scientists than to reach the true value of the object measured".16

Alongside this military-industrial complex of rigorous standardisation, the limits within which values could travel were also given new attention. Concerned with the spatial distribution of standardised technical systems, the French military engineers of the Restoration, according to André Guillerme, developed "a new category of thought - the network". A key aspect of this category was that it defined a knowable, controllable territory which could not easily be extended without labour, conflict, breakdown or war. There were social limits to metrology too. Brose cites Prussian military theorists' studies of ways of combining a classicist model of heroic war with the demands of the system of military production. The solution was to moralise the body discipline of the Prussian troops alongside the accuracy of the weapons they carried. These nineteenth century metrologies both spawned and relied on moral and geographical systems. They helped produce the agencies which were used to explain their meaning.17 The most potent of these agencies was, of course, nature itself. In a fascinating and ingenious series of debates, nineteenth century physicists reckoned that nature was made up of standardisation elements just like those they saw in the armed forces and the factories. Then they used this fact to explain their application of these natural elements to the purposes of industry and empire. One salient example, as Robert Brain and Norton Wise have recently well demonstrated, is found in the debates around the engineering methods used by Helmholtz and his young Berlin colleagues from the 1840s for the analysis of muscles and mechanical systems. They showed clearly how potent was a military-industrial metrology of human muscle power, and they showed, too, how conflicted such projects would be in Prussian circles unimpressed by the linkage between machines, money and human value.18 Similar problem situations developed in mid-Victorian Britain. In an influential textbook on method, Bessel's most notable British admirer, the astronomer John Herschel, urged that precision measurement revealed that all atoms of the same kind were exactly alike. "A line of spinning

16 David Landes, Revolution in Time, Bellknap, Cambridge (MA), 1983, pp. 290-1; Eric Brose, The Politics of Technological Change in Prussia, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993, pp. 171-81; Kathryn Olesko, Physics as a Calling, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1991, pp. 66-74; Marie- Françoise Jozeau, "La Mesure de la terre au XIXe siècle", in Jean-Claude Beaune (ed.), La mesure: instruments et philosphies, Camp Vallon, Paris, 1994, p. 105. 17 André Guillerme, "Network: Birth of a Category in Engineering Thought during the French Restoration", History and Technology, 8, 1992, p. 163; Eric Brose, Technological Change in Prussia, pp. 182-7. 18 Robert Brain and Norton Wise, "Muscles and Engines", in Lorenz Kruger (ed.), Universalgenie Helmholtz, Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 1994, pp. 124-45.

80 Modernity and Metrology jennies, or a regiment of soldiers dressed exactly alike, and going through precisely the same evolutions, gives us no idea of independent existent: we must see them act out of concert before we can believe them to have independent wills and properties". Factories and barracks were good signs of control. Disorder manifested wilful autonomy. Thus, Herschel concluded, since the atomic world was revealed to be identical everywhere, its atoms possessed "the essential characters, at once, of a manufactured article, and a subordinate agent". The values of work• shop uniformity provided the values of precision measurement in the modem sciences.19

4. Metrology as imperialism

In what sense, therefore, is the "internationalism" of these sciences to be understood? Lecourt explicitly harks back to a lost moment, the later nineteenth century, when, as he puts it, "a Europe in full intellectual effervescence applied itself to the elaboration of a vocabulary which it sent across its frontiers", the Europe of Mach, Boltzmann, Hertz, Maxwell, Thomson and Poincaré. These men's laboratories were designed to train their staff in the principal tasks of new sciences of mechanical, thermal and electromagnetic work. Accurate measurement and machine management became prerequisites for large numbers of laboratory workers. Standards of the mechanical equivalent of heat and of electrical resistance were established in newly disciplined laboratories of experimental physics and engineering. But such communities define their solidarity in relation to the excluded. It is important to juxtapose the metropoli• tan centres with other sites of resistance, change and transformation, whether these were an instrument-makers' workshop in Glasgow, an Argentine railway system or a telegraph station in Suez. The power of physics over its world required an extended and diverse imperium of such complex practices.20

It is easy to exaggerate the centralism and homogeneity of these technological empires. As Armand Mattelart has recently argued, with respect to European systems of time distribution and cable telegraphy, "engineers and operators got different senses from technological dependence according to their distance from the heart of the system... historical examples of the functionality of these systems must not let us forget another history, that of the erratic paths followed by each nation in the implantation and use of its networks, beyond or despite dependency".21 Instead of focusing only on Paris, Berlin or Prague, on lecture rooms, laboratories or exhibitions, it is just as important to go elsewhere. An example is Egypt, a salient site for nineteenth century imperial, colonial and technical contest. This is a place

19 John Herschel, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, London, 1830, p. 38. 20 Dominique Lecourt, Repenser la science; for the new sciences of work see Crosbie Smith, 77îe Science of Energy, Athlone, London, 1998; and Mary Jo Nye, Before Big Science, Twayne, New York, 1996. 21 Armand Mattelart, L'invention de la communication, Découverte, Paris, 1994, pp. 192, 197.

81 Simon Schaffer where the agency of Kula's metrological prefects was obvious. In 1803, Conrad Malte-Brun, leading French geographer, summed up the effects of the attempted Napoleonic standardis• ation of Egypt. "Cairo gave itself up to the French. The city in no way suffered at the hands of its conqueror and its monuments, customs, religion were respected". But, the mathematical geographer continued, "it was necessary to wipe out all political and religious distinctions, to accustom men of different religions to obey the same laws and to change the nature of property". Egypt was subjected in the first six decades of the nineteenth century to Bonapartist then Benthamite educational management, rationalist urban planning, the whole- scale substitution of its varied economy by monolithic cotton production destined for the Lancashire mills, and, after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, to Thomas Cook's well- organised tourist business. It remained a site where the empires of European science were tried out and where, in contrast, models of the exotic, strange and alien were developed. "No other place in the world in the nineteenth century", Tim Mitchell has written of Egyptian cotton, "was transformed on a greater scale to serve the production of a single industry". Consider, then, a series of (scarcely successful) European initiatives in the displacement of control, technique and the imposition of values.22

In April 1859 a team of expert British and German engineers reached Alexandria to begin work on laying a submarine telegraph cable down the Red Sea from Suez. In the wake of the Indian Mutiny two years earlier, the British government backed emergency measures to set up communication links with the jewel of its empire. A new company was formed to lay the cable across the Mediterranean and from Egypt to Karachi. The team sent to Egypt included many of Europe's most important telegraphy experts. Present on the dockside at Alexandria was Robert Newall, boss of the famous Birkenhead copper wire company charged with laying the cable. There too were a couple of the closest allies of the Glasgow physicist William Thomson: the young engineer Fleeming Jenkin and also Lewis Gordon, Newall's partner and ex-engineering professor at Glasgow University. Last, by no means least, was Werner Siemens, the German electrotechnologist contracted to supply telegraph equipment and check the cable for faults. Well-equipped tourists, the group took time to visit the Pyramids. Well-equipped physicists and engineers, they spent the summer laying a cable down the Red Sea, narrowly surviving a disastrous shipwreck on the way back to Egypt in September. The cable's fate was less happy. By late 1859 it had failed before transmitting any signals at all, a loss of more than £800.000 to the British government.23

22 For Malte-Brun see Anne Godlewska, "Napoleon's Geographers", in Godlewska and Neil Smith (eds.), Geography and Empire, Blackwell, Oxford, 1994, p. 45. For Egypt's fate see Tim Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1991, pp. 15-21; Juan Cole, Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993, pp. 23-83. 23 Werner Siemens, Inventor and Entrepreneur: Recollections, 2nd ed., Lund Humphries, London, 1996, pp. 130-45; Daniel Headrick, Tentacles of Progress, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988, p. 100.

82 Modernity and Metrology

Six years later, in November 1864, a less expensive but very well-equipped expedition reached Egypt from Britain. Its leader was the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth. A brilliant amateur photographer, Smyth was also a world authority on the use of precision measuring instruments in astrophysics and spectroscopy. He came to survey the Great Pyramid with unprecedentedly accurate equipment, fine Edinburgh theodolites and clinometers. He used the inmost Pyramid tomb to take the very first flash photograph ever made and an outer tomb to set up an impromptu instrument shop. Smyth aimed to test whether the dimensions of the Pyramid were commensurate with those of the solar system and of the Universe, thus demonstrating its origin as a "metrological monument" inspired by God. After a year's work at Gizeh, Smyth convinced himself not only of the building's divine origin but that the unit used by its builders was exactly one British Imperial yard. The moral status of the British system of measures was thus secured against foreign, mainly French and atheist competitors, and, in a potent reversal of history, Egypt was revealed as an original site of British values, unfortunately overlaid with extraneous and illusory Arab intruders. Smyth also convinced influential allies, such as the Manchester physicist James Prescott Joule and William Petrie, an evangelical electrician and railway engineer who was in Cairo to help lay the country's new British-owned railway network. They agreed that the Pyramid "forms in itself and in all its grand simplicity and antiquity, a single representation of the whole of the numerous, laborious and most costly sun-distance results of all humankind even in the present age", but Smyth's numbers faced fierce criticism, first from a British Ordnance Survey team sent out in 1869 to map Christianity's sacred sites, then from the young Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, son of Smyth's erstwhile collaborator. Despite well-attended lantern slide lectures back in Britain, backing from large sectors of the American railway engineering community, and widespread opposition to the dangers of metrication, Smyth never managed to convince enough of his colleagues that the yard was a godly relic preserved in ancient Egyptian culture.24

One of Smyth's more sceptical contacts was his Greenwich opposite number, the Astronomer Royal George Airy. In December 1874 Airy sent a team of British military officers to Egypt to observe the transit of the planet Venus across the face of the Sun, a means of estimating the Sun's distance from the Earth. Smyth and Petrie reckoned this distance was exactly one thousand million times the Pyramid's height. Other astronomers needed a good value to establish the astronomical unit. They had the full co-operation of the ruler of Egypt, Khedive

24 Charles Piazzi Smyth, Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, 3 vols., Edmonston and Douglas, Glasgow, 1867, vol. 1, p. xii; and idem, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, 3rd ed., Daldy, Isbister, London, 1877, p. 54; H.A. Brück and M.T Brück, The Peripatetic Astronomer, the Life of Charles Piazzi Smyth, Adam Hilger, Bristol, 1988, pp. 95-134; Simon Schaffer, "Metrology, Metrication and Victorian Values", in Bernard Lightman (ed.), Victorian Science in Context, Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1997, pp. 438-74.

83 Simon Schaffer

Ismail. The Khedive's own astronomer, Mahmoud Bey, working at Abbaseyeh, observed the moment when the planet appeared to leave the Sun's disc. According to Airy, "the Khedive rendered every possible assistance". The British observers and their fragile instruments were provided with military guards. Telegraph wires were laid from the observatories at Luxor to Alexandria and thence to Britain via the world's longest submarine line, a more successful version managed by the Manchester telegraph monopolist John Pender in 1869 to replace the disastrous Red Sea cable of a decade earlier. "The Astronomer Royal acknowledges the obligations of the expedition to the liberality of (Pender's) Eastern Telegraph Company, in affording the means of determining with extreme accuracy and great facility the longitude of the principal station". By late 1877 Airy had collated the results of these observations, made at British bases round the world from the Cape of Good Hope to Melbourne. They generated a solar distance of about 91 million miles, distinctly less than the 95 million miles accepted since the eighteenth century. But the results were uniformly judged a failure. The Venusian atmosphere prompted observers' differences of as much as 30 seconds. The uncertainty in the solar distance remained at all out 1.5 million miles. "The grand campaign", commented a contemporary observer, "came to nothing".25

In July 1882 a second band of British soldiers arrived in Egypt for another grand campaign. In the interim, Ismail had run up debts of a size unacceptable to his European financiers. He had been deposed in favour of his son Tewfik, who rapidly lost support from the debt- burdened Egyptian population and was compelled to appoint a nationalist ministry in autumn 1881. Following anti-European demonstrations in Cairo and other cities, Gladstone's government sent a punitive force. Alexandria was reduced to rubble by ten hours' naval bombardment. The British set up a new railway engineering company and telegraph lines were laid from the coast to the inland cities. In August 1882 20.000 troops, supplied with newfangled Nordenfeldt machine guns and under the command of Garnet Wolsely, destroyed the Egyptian army at Tel-el-Kebir and imposed British rule on the entire country. The offi• cial War Office historian commented that "it is hardly possible to imagine a sight more calculated to impress an eastern population than the display of the various arms of the little force which had in so short a time disposed of the fate of Egypt". Once again, Tim Mitchell uses these events to teach us that "global colonialism came into being not only as a local method of order, seeking to work with individual minds and bodies, but as a process that was continuously reporting, picturing and representing itself', and militant metrologies were a sign of, and a reason for, this process.26

25 For the Pyramid's height see C.P. Smyth, Our Inheritance, pp. 51-2. For the transit trip see Norman Lockyer, "The Sun's Distance", Nature, 17, 1 November 1877, pp. 1-3; Agnes Clerke, Popular History of Astronomy in the Nineteenth Century, Black, London, 1908, pp. 235-7; Smyth gives his judgement in Our Inheritance, pp. 56-7.

26 Tim Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, pp. 128-30; Juan Cole, Colonialism and Revolution, pp. 235-41.

84 Modernity and Metrology

Traditional histories have seen little connection between these successive Egyptian ex• peditions. But without the reliable standards of submarine telegraphy, neither the longitude of the astronomers' temporary observatories nor the communications network of the British army would have been secured. And the reliability of these cables depended on the reliability of the values of electrical metrology established in the new physics and engineering laboratories of Thomson's Britain and Siemens' Germany.27 However, the connection between the values established in physics laboratories and the values on which imperialism relied were even more intimate than this. Late nineteenth century scientists joined networks in which standard machines, values and practices were distributed worldwide. Imperialism, mass production and metrology dominated their universe. Philosophers call this problem of pro• jecting from genuine local success to allegedly global validity the "problem of induction". European physicists and politicians of the later nineteenth century saw it as the problem of long-range imperial and commercial control. In the early 1870s, the Cambridge physics professor James Clerk Maxwell set out the relation between scientific standards and geopolitical spaces. He argued that "the want of a unit is felt in buying and selling... The end and aim of all units is to make all contracts and other statements involving quantities intelligible and precise... It has always been the care of wise governments to provide national standards and to make the use of other standards punishable... The man of business requires these standards for the sake of justice, the man of science requires them for the sake of truth, and it is the business of the state to see that our... measures are maintained uniform".28

5. Metrology as discipline

Maxwell summarised an emerging commonplace of late nineteenth century physics: the role of the state, the significance of commercial geography and the worth of universal values were all vital components of this culture. In order to ensure that their own domestic techniques could be applied elsewhere, members of this culture had to design new labour processes for their workers and new technologies robust enough to travel into the world beyond their immediate control. In his remarkable study of modernity's railway system, tellingly subtitled "the industrialisation of time and space in the nineteenth century", Wolfgang Schivelbusch

27 Simon Schaffer, "Late Victorian Metrology and its Instrumentation: A Manufactory of Ohms", in Mario Biagioli (ed.), The Science Studies Reader, Routledge, London, 1999, pp. 457-78; Bruce Hunt, "Doing Science in a Global Empire: Cable Telegraphy and Electrical Physics in Victorian Britain", in Bernard Lightman (ed.), Victorian Science in Context, Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1997, pp. 312-333. 28 Maxwell's remarks are in Dimensions of Physical Quantities, Cambridge University Library MSS ADD 7655 V h.4. The document must be later than 1867 and probably predates 1873. Compare the very similar remarks by Helmholtz cited in David Cahan, "Helmholtz and the Civilizing Power of Science", in Cahan (ed.), Helmholtz and the Foundations of Nineteenth Century Science, California University Press, Los Angeles, 1994, pp. 575-76.

85 Simon Schaffer points out the decisive role which the railways played in the distribution and discipline of standard values, of fuel, screws, gauges, reading-matter, hotels, frozen food, timetables, land• scape and passengers. In very similar terms, Otto Sibum has argued for the connection between carefully standardised estimations of the value of pure work and the widespread distribution both of machines and of disciplined labour forces in this period. Both Schivelbusch and Sibum pick out the cogwheel system oddly favoured for so long by engineers as a means for rail-track locomotion. They cite the view of the German engineer Franz Reuleaux (1878), that the cogwheel's systematic loss of play, the inevitable integration of the railway as a single machine-complex, was the essence of the civilising process of modernity: "the cosmic freedom of the natural phenomenon becomes transformed by the machine into an order and law that outside forces of an ordinary kind are unable to disrupt".29 The railway's enemies agreed, of course, that mechanical discipline insulated culture from nature, but then they inferred the replacement of real values by inauthentic ones. Thus Charles Dickens in 1848 moved swiftly between standardised culture and the lack of play in the rail system itself: "There were railway patterns in the draper's shops, and railway journals in the windows of newsmen. There were railway hotels, coffee-houses, lodging houses: railway plans, maps, views, wrappers, bottles, and time-tables: railway omnibuses, railway streets and buildings, railway hangers-on and parasites, and flatterers out of all calculation. There was even railway time observed in clocks, as if the Sun itself had given in. Wonderful members of Parliament, who, little more than twenty years before, had made themselves merry with the wild railroad theories of engineers, went...with their watches in their hands, and sent on messages before by the electric telegraph, to say that they were coming. Night and day the conquering engines, advancing smoothly to their journey's end, and gliding like tame dragons into the allotted corners grooved out to the inch for their reception, stood bubbling and trembling there, as if they were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers yet unsuspected in them, and strong purposes not yet achieved."30 The strong purposes were metrologies' objects. Rational action was supposed to be protected from value-laden judgement and unreliable natural forces.

Sibum's penetrating analysis of the nineteenth century sciences of work shows how the insulated security of accurate and transferable knowledge relied on the informal skills of a complex of bodily habits and practices. The balance of standards and tolerances embodied the values of industrial civilisation. The integrity of the data which European physicists gathered relied on the explicit and implicit disciplines to which observers had been subjected

29 Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1986, pp. 19-20, 169; H.O. Sibum, As Good as Gold: Civilized Engineering in Modem Practical Physics, forthcoming. 30 Charles Dickens, Dealings with the Firm ofDombey and Son. Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation, 1848, chapter 15.

86 Modernity and Metrology

and on the techniques and hardware in which they had been trained. Before the Venus transit of December 1874, Airy turned his observatory into something resembling a military camp. In every European headquarters, each observer had to be tested against an artificial model of the transit to measure his particular reaction time, or "personal equation". According to one Victorian astronomer "each observer went out ticketed with his personal equation, his senses drilled into a species of martial discipline, his powers absorbed, so far as possible, in the action of a cosmopolitan observing machine". The comparative failure of the transit survey showed how fragile was this discipline, and this fragility fed back into controversies on the physics of light and the mechanics of the solar system.31 Exactly the same kind of cosmo• politan mechanisation was required to maintain the coherence of the telegraph system and the authority with which physicists moved between electromagnetic laboratory experiments and deep sea cable technology. Cable physics was not the easy application of experiment and theory to world-wide settings. Rather, the veracity of rival electromagnetic models rapidly developed in the 1850s and the viability of the long-range telegraph systems were established simultaneously.32 But it was always hard to say whether breakdown was due to particular problems of theory, or design, or weather, or indiscipline. An entire complex of hardware, much of it designed by Thomson and Siemens, surrounded the telegraph wire to control and regulate its performance. This hardware also required new corps of telegraphists and engineers trained in European laboratories and engineering schools. Maxwell summed up the problem at the very start of his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873): "the important applications of electromagnetism to telegraphy have also reacted on pure science by giving a commercial value to accurate electric measurements and by affording to electricians the use of apparatus on a scale which greatly transcends that of any ordinary laboratory".33

In order for the use of this large-scale apparatus to count as a test of electromagnetic theory, physicists needed to know that ships, wire factories and telegraph stations were adequately disciplined. In order for engineers and imperial planners to trust the physicists' stories, they had to know that what worked in metropolitan laboratories would also succeed deep below the sea. Engineers could all too easily dismiss electromagnetic recipes as "fictions of the schools".34 Mutual confidence could only be secured by the systematic transformation of

11 S.J. Perry, "The Methods Employed and the Results Obtained in the late Transit of Venus Expedition", in South Kensington Museum Free Evening Lectures, Chapman and Hall, London, 1876, p. 52; Agnes Clerke, Nineteenth Century Astronomy, p. 235. 32 Iwan Rhys Morus, 'Telegraphy and the Technology of Display", History of Technology, 13, 1991, p. 22. 33 Daniel Headrick, Tentacles of Progress, pp. 102-3; J.D. Scott, Siemens Brothers, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1958, pp. 33-42; James Clerk Maxwell, Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 3rd ed., Clarendon, Oxford, 1891, p. vii. 14 Bruce Hunt, "Michael Faraday, Cable Telegraphy and the Rise of Field Theory", History of Technology, 13, 1991, p. 10.

87 Simon Schaffer order. The physicists and entrepreneurs immediately registered the need for a reliable "philo• sophic assistant and a practical man", someone they could trust on board the cable-laying ships sent out from Europe. This is why men like Jenkin were sent on the cable voyages, to help tum them into places where rival physical theories could be tested and where technical success could better be guaranteed. But after the spectacular failures of the Atlantic and Indian cables at the end of the 1850s, as Siemens himself recalled, the engineers blamed the "scientific humbug" of their landlocked theorists, while the physicists blamed the indiscipline of the technicians and businessmen. The imposition of "proper supervision and care" was the pre• condition of the creation of the empire of physics. The spaces outside its management, whether Newall's cable works or the Egyptian treasury, were easily represented as a realm of indiscipline.35

Nowhere were the values of metrology's empire more apparent than in the potent contrast drawn between the allegedly trustworthy and accurate conduct of scientific instruments and assistants and the hostility, incomprehension or recalcitrance of alien cultures. The sermons of modem values taught the force of this appealing and self-serving contrast. "The European is a close reasöner", observed Britain's administrator of Egypt from 1882, Lord Cromer. "His statements of fact are devoid of any ambiguity... his trained intelligence works like a piece of mechanism". By contrast, according to Cromer, "the mind of the Oriental, like his picturesque streets, is eminently wanting in symmetry. His reasoning is of the most slipshod description". Orientalists might enjoy what Smyth called "Cairo and its narrow streets, gaudily dressed population and crowded bazaars". But in the 1860s he found it an obstacle "to a man of moderate means and with a definite task to accomplish within a limited time". He drew a pointed contrast between his own mastery of the best British precision instruments and Arab distrust of, and incompetence with, these devices. European instruments were "proofs in their minds that a European cannot get on at any occupation without some queer and troublesome contrivance to peep through - when an Arab has only to look straight at a thing with his simple eyes, and perceive its whole bearings at once". The supposed universality of the values embodied in European instruments and European physics meant that other nations could be judged by their inability to share them. Doubtless, as Michael Adas has recently demonstrated, the uneasy capacity to make such ingenious techniques work elsewhere on Earth was taken by its proponents as a sign of the innate superiority of the culture which had invented them.36

35 Crosbie Smith and Norton Wise, Energy and Empire, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 664-7, 678; Werner Siemens, Inventor and Entrepreneur, pp. 120, 128; Kathryn Olesko, "Precision, Tolerance and Consensus: Local Cultures in German and British Resistance Standards", in Jed Buchwald (ed.), Scientific Credibility and Technical Standards in 19th and Early 20th Century Germany and Britain, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1996, pp. 117-56. 36 C.P. Smyth, Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, 1:20 and 1:299-300; Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1989; Lord Cromer is cited in Edward Said, Orientalism, Vintage Books, New York, 1979, p. 38.

88 Modernity and Metrology

6. Metrology as value

This is a pessimistic conclusion. Metrologies embody and distribute rival values, have all too often been intimate with militarisation, and scarcely escape the interests of national and class struggle. At the same time, however, we have stressed the way in which these values at once produce and are dependent upon legal regularity. As Victorian Britain's chief metrologist, the Astronomer Royal George Airy, pithily put it, "when they cease to be of the order of routine I think that a Government establishment fails".37 He meant that the scientific institutions of state could never reliably innovate, or generate discovery: they could only produce regularity. But he also believed that the state institutions would always be able to produce this order everywhere. This is the tense relationship with heroic change and banal uniformity which metrological institutions embody. Thus Musil observes that it would be interesting to know why, in the matter of a red nose, for instance, one is content with the vague statement that it is red, never asking what particular shade of red it is, although this could be precisely expressed in micromillimetres, in terms of wave-lengths, whereas in the case of something so infinitely more complicated, such as a town in which one happens to be, one always wants to know quite exactly what particular town it is.-38 It is not surprising that historians of metrology have found such valuable resources in contemporary, Wittgensteinian and Weberian, analyses of moder• nity's predicament as the routinisation of charisma in rule-governed bureaucracy.

The recent studies of Ted Porter on objectivity, standardisation and valuation in the cases of cost-benefit analysis and actuarial measures - his favoured case is the estimation of the financial value of a human life - insist that increasing measured standardisation putatively reduces the scope for arbitrary decision under the pressure of demands for public accountability. Standards' value is neutrality rather than truth. "The rhetoric of quan• tification", Porter urges, "has flourished in a context defined by the simultaneous growth of democracy and centralised bureaucracy". Value-freedom, on this showing, flourishes in cultures convinced of the moral value of precise values. Porter convinces that there is a profound connection between the politics of the liberal-industrial state and the development of universalistic technologies of standardised measures.39 An alternative and complementary account asks fewer questions about the emplacement of metrologies in the social order, and, instead, sees metrological systems as themselves forms of social order. Bruno Latour argues that "much more effort has to be invested in extending science than in doing it", and he

37 George Airy cited in Report of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science, 1871-5, qu. 10492. 38 Musil's experimental work at Berlin involved the development of a standardised chronometer. 39 Theodore Porter, "Objectivity as Standardization: The Rhetoric of Impersonality in Measurement, Statistics and Cost-Benefit Analysis", in Allan Megill (ed.), Rethinking Objectivity, Duke, Durham, 1994, pp. 197-238, on p. 227.

89 Simon Schaffer defines metrology as the "gigantic enterprise to make of the outside a world inside which facts and machines can survive": not, notice, a world necessarily tailored to the survival of the citizens of the capitalist state, but to machines.40 Following up Latour's suggestions, Joseph O'Connell has recently discussed metrological systems in healthcare, electrotechnology, and, eloquently, in modern military industries. O'Connell treats the networks so painstakingly engineered by technicians, industrialists, scientists and bureaucrats as so many societies, and argues for a new social history of such items as "the volt - a distributed collective connected by continually renewed structured relations of exchange and authority". Technologies of standards are here seen not as responding to, but as embodying, social relations.41

O'Connell examines the move from artefactual standards, such as those constructed by the laboratory workforces of British physicists in the 1870s and 1880s who sought an object which could securely represent the unit of electrical resistance, to intrinsic standards, where, since 1990, the ohm is to be recovered by local measures of the quantum Hall effect capable, in principle, of being tried in every interested lab. The move from artefactual to intrinsic standards accompanies centralised documentation and decentralised embodiment. O'Connell analogises this move to a metrological Reformation - standards organisations have now stepped aside to allow direct access to the ohm by all communicants, local ohms are not thought capable of corruption, and no further periodic communion between the absolute ohm and its local representatives is thought necessary. The explicitly social sacralisation of these absolutes is displaced by more apparently naturalistic confidence in the competence of every commu• nicating laboratory. So both accounts see the distribution of standards as linked, albeit in different ways, with the routinisation of charisma. For Porter, metrology's history complements what Weber called the "discharge of business according to calculable rules and without regard for persons"; for O'Connell, this history generates a universalist asceticism of the community of all believers.42 Both accounts refer to the modem order Weber so famously stressed in 1905: "this order is now bound to the technical and economic presuppositions of mechanical, machine-like production, which today determines with irresistible force the life style of all individuals bom into this mechanism, not only those directly engaged in economic enterprise, and perhaps will determine it until the last ton of fossil coal is burned."43

40 Bruno Latour, Science in Action, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1987, p. 251. 41 Joseph O'Connell, "Metrology: The Creation of Universality by the Circulation of Particulars", Social Studies of Science, 23, 1993, p. 166. Compare Andrew Barry, "The History of Measurement and the Engineers of Space", British Journal for the History of Science, 26, 1993, pp. 459-68. 42 Joseph O'Connell, Metrology, p. 154: H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber, Routledge, London, 1948, p. 215. 43 From Lawrence Scaff, Fleeing the Iron Cage: culture, politics and modernity in the thought of Max Weber, California University Press, Los Angeles, 1989, p. 88.

90 Modernity and Metrology

The decisive aspect of this system is the way it combines an apparent withdrawal from the natural and the moral orders with a sustained attempt to dominate and remake them. In a recent study of the process of European integration, William Wallace insists on the importance of value systems as dynamic resources for maintaining imagined communities' integrity. But he also makes a firm distinction between formal and informal integration, between discon• tinuous development of legal and political regulation and continuously evolving networks of more complex interactions.44 We have seen that this may not be a very helpful distinction. The history of metrology demonstrates that its institutional regulation is also, and precisely, a value system. Metrology's apparently contradictory demands for institutional insulation and ever wider spatial integration stem from and embody the political and economic conflicts of the modem social order.

44 William Wallace, "Introduction", in Wallace (ed.), The Dynamics of European Integration, Pinter, London, 1990, pp. 9, 17.

91

The Sciences at the European Periphery during the Enlightenment: Transmission versus Appropriation Kostas Gavroglu

Europe is presently in the throes of its most dramatic transformations since the end of the Second World War. New nations states come into being, new borders emerge, new institutions appear, and old institutions restructure themselves. Many historians and other scholars will look again at the past in the light of current changes. The work that has already been done, as well as newly available sources, combine with (comparatively) open intellectual environments and increases in funding for trans-cultural contacts to offer an unprecedented opportunity for a critical re-examination of the historical character of science in Europe.

One of the most intriguing challenges for historians of science, technology and medicine is to chart their own thematic atlas within this geographically expanded and culturally diverse Europe, whose present configuration provides a unique opportunity for symbiosis between established and emerging communities of historians. Members of newer communities will soon decide how to recast what have often, and for many years, been local topics in ways that can be linked to contemporary historiography of science. But some historians in the emerging scholarly communities will certainly feel that the present moment is an opportune time to set the record straight in respect to national contributions, to do justice to those who have been oppressed or not given what the authors of today consider the right attention. That sort of an agenda must, I feel, be resisted, not only because it will eventually become parochial, but also because in contemporary Europe we are at a fortunate juncture that offers an unprecedented, and perhaps fleeting, opportunity to expand the domain of problems and issues in the history of science as a whole. I feel that the systematic study of the appropria• tion of the new ideas in the different societies of the periphery during the 18th century provides us with such an opportunity. Hence, what follows should also be read as part of a problematic concerning the agenda of a newly emerging community of historians of science and technology.

Should, those of us who are part of the newly emerging communities, be thinking of particular themes around which the young scholars will, in the future, make their own mark within the international community of historians of science? Could there be characteristic and distinctive features of the research agenda of such a newly emerging community of historians of science? In which ways could such an agenda be pursued so that this community will make its own space within the international community of historians of science and

93 Kostas Gavroglu discuss intelligibly the relevant issues with other members of the community? How can a newly emerging community of historians of science avoid parochialism in its attempt to problematise local issues? There appears to be a host of themes which are conveniently referred to as local themes, and attempting to problematise them is, I think, a very challenging prospect indeed. One such theme - and I stress that it is just one of such themes - is the trans• mission and appropriation of the scientific ideas in the countries of the European periphery from the 18th century to our days.1

1. Periphery

Reception or transmission studies are not, of course, something new. There have been studies discussing the diffusion of the new ideas about nature in England, Scotland, France, the Low Countries and Germany during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many problems related to the reforms by Peter the Great in Russia have been analysed. There have been studies on the introduction of the new scientific ideas in Latin America. So is the case of many aspects of science in the Scandinavian countries. Furthermore, there has been extensive, if somewhat problematic, scholarship on the question of science, technology and imperialism. There have also been accounts of the establishment of University Chairs in many countries. The intro• duction of modem physics in a number of countries is also well documented. The reactions to the Darwinian theory have been the subject of serious scholarship. Nevertheless, the respective works in languages other than the local languages for the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire, the Central European countries, the Baltic countries, Portugal, but also Spain, have been very few and mostly from a philological point of view. I do not consider the lack of studies for any subject, by itself, a legitimate reason for starting to work on it but it has become possible to raise many interesting historical questions to warrant an analytical dis• cussion of these issues.

Although a simple bipolar distinction between centre and periphery is useful for broadly delineating the situation, it is incapable of capturing many salient details. There are first of all many centres and many peripheries. Moreover, and depending on the subject one is discussing, a place may be both centre and periphery. A centre may, over time, change into a periphery, and vice-versa. And a single country may contain both centres and peripheries, thereby making purely national distinctions of dubious use. Nevertheless, in the following I shall use the term centre-periphery to denote the dynamics of the transmission and appropriation of the new scientific ideas from the region broadly defined by the British Isles, France, Switzerland, Germany and the Low Countries to the rest of Europe during the 18th century.

1 See "Archimedes", editor Jed Buchwald, in Kostas Gavroglu (ed.), The Sciences in the European Periphery During the Enlightenment, vol. 2, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1999.

94 The Sciences at the European Periphery during the Enlightenment

2. The issues

The concept of the "transfer" of ideas is found to be ultimately inadequate in contextualising the dissemination of the new sciences in the societies of the European periphery. I shall argue that "appropriation" can be a more coherent and fruitful analytic instrument. Appropriation directs attention to the measures devised within the appropriating culture to shape the new ideas within the local traditions which form the framework of local constraints - political, ideological as well as intellectual constraints. To examine such issues requires discussing the ways in which ideas that originate in a specific cultural and historical setting are in• troduced into a different milieu with its own intellectual traditions as well as political and educational institutions.

A historiography based on the concept of transfer can easily degenerate into an algorithm for keeping tabs on what is and what is not "successfully" transmitted. A historiography built around the concept of appropriation is more comparable to the procedures of cultural history; accep• tance or rejection, reception or opposition are intrinsically cultural processes. Such an approach also permits the newly introduced scientific ideas to be treated not as the total sum of discrete units of knowledge but as a network of interconnected concepts. The practical outcome of a historiography based on the notion of appropriation is to be able to articulate the particularities of a discourse that is developed and eventually adopted within the appropriating culture.

Undoubtedly the concept of transmission of ideas is of some use to the historian of ideas. This, however, is apparent only when the transmission of ideas is used for certain specific cases within a wider context of the appropriation of multiple cultural traditions during a specified period of a society's history. In these occasions the intellectual and institutional framework for the reception of the new ideas is, to a large extent, conditioned by the cultural and religious traditions of the specific society. But one must always recognise that ideas are not simply transferred as if they were material commodities. They are always transformed in unexpected and sometimes startling ways as they are appropriated within the multiple cultural traditions of a specific society during a particular period of its history. Indeed, a major challenge for historians who examine processes of appropriation across boundaries is precisely to transcend the merely geographical reference, and to understand the character of what one might call the receiving culture.

Adopting the notion of appropriation directs attention to the production of a distinctive scientific discourse through the reception of the new scientific ideas. This is a crucial point and misconceptions abound. Many historians assume that the scholars of the periphery introduce the new scientific ideas having already adopted the same constitutive characteristics of the new discourse as those adopted by the scholars at the centre. Alternatively, one will have to adopt the view that the whole enterprise of appropriating the new ideas during the 18th

95 Kostas Gavroglu century could only be achieved through the formation of a new discourse as the optimum way of overcoming the local constraints. We should direct our attention not so much on drawing lists of what has been successfully transmitted. Instead, what is to be systematically studied are the metamorphoses the new ideas go through at the initial stages and the kinds of attempts by the "local" scholars to incorporate them into existing traditions. For it appears that at the initial stages of the attempts to introduce new ideas, the respective scholars can choose among many alternatives for developing an appropriate discourse.

One of the main aspects of such an approach is to understand the dynamics and the conditions under which the creation of legitimising spaces for the new ideas becomes possible. The problem is relatively simple in those cases where we are confronted with the well discerned and clearly defined spaces such as universities and academies. But in many instances, in the countries of the periphery, one may not be able to even find such spaces. So where shall we direct our attention to find these legitimising spaces? How is one to understand the many cases of priests who have written extensively on the subjects we are interested in and have spent all their lives teaching at schools in agricultural regions? How is one to understand the many cases of lay people who had written similar works and never had the opportunity of communicating them through the standard institutional settings? Other indications than the standard educational institutions should be sought, which may help us discern the analogous legitimising spaces. Travel itineraries, publishing programmes by publishers, lists of subscribers at the end of each book, may be some alternative indications.

Disputes among scholars have also been a particularly advantageous method for understanding the dynamics of legitimising space. But somehow in the more standard accounts, disputes presuppose an audience with an inclination or at least a potential interest to engage in the issues involved in the dispute. Audiences have always been a necessary dimension for a discussion of disputes, and it has quite often been the case that those who are directly involved in a dispute are preoccupied almost exclusively with the audience rather than the adversary. But what about the case when there are public disputes and an audience which is on the whole totally ignorant of the issues involved but supportive of the overall agenda of particular scholars? Can under such circumstances our studies concentrate in understanding the cognitive content of disputes? My answer is yes, it is possible to deal with the cognitive content, but only if one stops looking at disputes as intricate rituals and analyse them as alternative educational processes.

Furthermore, part of understanding the creation of legitimising spaces for the new ideas is to comprehend the nature and features of resistance to the new ideas. Resistance to new ideas almost always derives from the fact that peoples and cultures do have answers to almost all the questions. Therefore, understanding the creation of legitimising spaces for the new ideas cannot be achieved independently from understanding the ways resistance is expressed against these new ideas.

96 The Sciences at the European Periphery during the Enlightenment

3. French Enlightenment and Newtonianism

Let me now discuss a problem which, I feel, has undermined a large number of studies on these issues. This problem has two seemingly unrelated sides which, however, I think are closely related. In a way, it is the dependence of a lot of historians on a double equation. Enlightenment equals French Enlightenment and the introduction of the new scientific ideas during the 18th century equals the reception of Newtonianism.

The first problem is the almost exclusive attention being given to the French Enlightenment. The French Enlightenment is taken as the paradigmatic expression of the Enlightenment, and all other expressions of the Enlightenment are considered as being either unfulfilled versions of the French case or cases which tended to the ideal and pure programme which was expressed by the French lumières and philosophes. The French Enlightenment has been particularly dear to the heart of a number of historians in the countries of the periphery, and especially of philologists, whose studies concentrated on scholars whose social and political agenda was a significant part of their life and work.

If we look, however, at the German case and studies a man like Christian Wolff, his followers and other rationalists of their time, we realise that they did not enter into a confrontation with either the political or the religious establishment, though they were definitely unwilling to accept their all pervasive power. In fact, this contradictory attitude, this practice of not wanting to come into a conflict, yet questioning the authority of the state and ecclesiastical powers, characterised this practice and set it apart from that of the French lumières. It was not an antagonistic view of the Enlightenment, but rather a complementary one.2

But his limitation, his desire never to go beyond certain definite barriers finally elicited from the man who set himself up as the protector of philosophers, Frederick II, a statement which defined with the utmost clarity that detachment, that division of labour between men of culture and statesmen which was only to be overcome with very great difficulty later in Germany. This is precisely the limitation of the greater part of the Aufklarung as opposed to the lumières. Frederick II would proceed to write that the philosophers "instruct the world through their reasoning we through exemplary practice". It was a division of labour which also meant putting the philosophers in their place, a definition of enlightened absolutism.3

2 Similar points are forcefully argued by F. Venturi, "The European Enlightenment" in his Italy and the Enlightenment: Studies in a Cosmopolitan Century, edited and with an introduction by Stuart Woolf, Longman, London, 1972, pp. 1-33. 3 Ibid., p. 21.

97 Kostas Gavroglu

It is not necessary to have more examples in order to underline the point I want to make. There have been many societies where it was often the case for persons holding high offices, to be consciously the initiating elements, in the local context, of Enlightenment policies. To study these cases with an almost exclusive dependence on the French case would be surely leading to deadlocks. In this respect let make three points.

The first point is almost trivial. The Enlightenment was not a homogeneous and uniform movement. There aren't more sanitised and less sanitised versions of the Enlightenment. They are all equally legitimate and it is wrong to look at the French version as the more advanced and radical, if we want to see how the movement in Europe as a whole influenced the rest of the regions. Exclusive attention to the French Enlightenment when studying the reception of the new ideas in the societies at the European periphery during the 18th century is, I feel, anachronistic and whiggish.

The second point is that we should look at the French Enlightenment and the German Enlightenment in their complementary aspects as well as in their contradictory aspects, and emphasis should be placed on the merging and the confluence of traditions. Let us be reminded that the Balkans turned out to be particularly receptive to the practices of en• lightened despotism of Germany, Austria, Poland and Russia.

And thirdly, we should deal with the scholars of the periphery as a group of people who turned what appeared a liability into an asset. These scholars acquired freedom of movement not in their attempts to introduce and mechanically apply the programme of the French Enlightenment. The scholars of the periphery acquired a rather creative freedom of move• ment when they realised that there was much to be gained by looking at the cracks of the French Enlightenment, by concentrating at its unfinished business, at its weaknesses and failures. In other words we should look at the scholars of the periphery not as passive agents whose only function was to locally distribute the well-packaged goods delivered to them from the centres of Europe, but rather as active subjects who received many goods with no particularly clear directions on how to use them locally. The French Enlightenment as the paradigmatic case of the Enlightenment, apart from being a historiographical construct much in demand in the twentieth century, is also a notion that reduces the local scholars to passive carriers of this otherwise "perfect" programme.

Let us now come to Newtonianism. Most works take for granted that the developments in natural philosophy during the 18th century were simply the unfolding of the Principia. At best they consider the 18th century as the algebraisation of the geometrical Principia. Nearly no one takes into consideration the deeply diverging opinions on the future, as it were, of mechanics. And even fewer people note that Newtonianism was in a state of flux and that such a state of affairs provided a much less constraining context to a lot of scholars of the periphery

98 The Sciences at the European Periphery during the Enlightenment

in their attempt to formulate a new discourse. Such considerations are rather significant for us since what we would be mainly concerned with is the understanding of the attempts to appropriate the new ideas through the formation of a new discourse. When we talk of the influence of Newtonianism, or still, when people talk of the ways Newtonianism was introduced at the periphery, the tendency is to see how the local scholars were influenced by the Principia, how faithful they were to that particular work or how much influenced they were by those who tried to either popularise Newton's work or write simpler scholarly treatises about it. If one deals with the second half of the 18th century, this is a misguided effort. For it is the period when the whole status of the notion of force was still an open question, and the development of rational and analytic mechanics was intensely pursued. To understand what came to be known as Newtonianism in the countries of the European periphery, it will greatly help to become aware of the failings and weaknesses of the Principia as well as of the constitutive aspects of the programme of rational mechanics, in order to better understand the whole question of "transmission", but even more so in order to comprehend the process of "appropriation". The process of appropriation involved eclecticism and decisions on the part of the scholars concerning choices between ongoing programmes and existing traditions, between, say, choosing "momentum or force physics" or preferring "vis viva conservation physics."

4. European science

Let me now come to another issue. In a 1995 White Paper on the question of unemployment and on the ways young people may gain many skills before finishing high school, the European Union proposed that history of science and technology be included in the school curricula.4 It was no doubt a good recommendation but for the wrong reasons. The White paper suggested that by learning the history of science, and especially the history of technology, young people would acquire knowledge of a variety of skills and techniques and would become aware of the boundlessness, as it were, of human inventiveness. The recommendation of the report, however, is embedded in a political rather than an academic rationale. It was noted that science has been a European phenomenon, that modern science was bom in Europe and that it should be taken as part of our common European heritage. From here, it is but a short step to be confronted with the elusive notion of European Science.

Here is one of those instances where there is such a dichotomy between political goals and the aims of an academic pursuit. Never mind that historians of science have been trying to articulate local differentiations and trying to bring to surface the deviations from the view

4 White Paper published by the European Commission titled Teaching and Learning: Towards the Learning Society, Luxembourg, 1995 (see sections II.Β and C).

99 Kostas Gavroglu that holds the scientific enterprise to be an all inclusive homogeneous practice. European integration needs European notions like "European science" and the spectre of European science will be continuously finding justifications.

So here is another dimension about the sciences at the European periphery: Talking about the periphery will result in articulating differences and not in seeking identities. The view which considers the sciences at the European periphery as the out-of-focus reflections of what has been happening at the centre is mostly for ideological use. The history of the sciences at the periphery is not an attempt to chart the map of the watered down version of what happened at the centre. We are not forced to assume that the scholars of the centre and those of the periphery had fundamentally similar profiles and similar agendas. We make such an assumption because we are convinced of the universality of the programme of the respective scholars and because it may not become possible to discern divergences unless the agendas are considered to be similar. The study of the sciences at the periphery will bring forth interesting historical issues only if such divergences in the European context are understood. Otherwise it would be trivial to study it: after all we do know that in the countries of the periphery there were no Newtons, no Laplaces, no Leibnizes, and no Eulers.

5. Some more questions

So what kind of themes are amenable for such a discussion and what kind of questions could be raised? Here are some examples of the many possible themes: What have been the particular expression of the new ideas in each place? What have been the specific forms of resistance encountered by these new ideas? To what extent such expressions and resistances display national characteristics? What were the commonalities and the differences between the methods developed by scholars at the "periphery" for handling scientific issues and those of their colleagues in the centre? What has been the role of the new scientific ideas, texts and popular scientific writings in forming the rhetoric concerning modernisation and national identity? What scientific institutions became prevalent as power was consolidated and opposition by local scholars emerged? What were the characteristics of the scientific discourse among local scholars? What was the relation between political power and scientific culture? What were the social agendas, educational policies and (in certain places) the research policies of scientists and scholars? What shifts in ideological and political allegiances were brought about as the landscape of social hierarchy changed? What consensus and tensions appeared as disciplinary boundaries formed, especially as reflected in the establishment of new University chairs? What ideological undertones characterised the disputes, and what was their cognitive content? What is the significance of the disputes for the "becoming" and/or "emergence" of the audiences? What is the character of the institutions legitimising the newly emerging community?

100 77ie Sciences at the European Periphery during the Enlightenment

Before going on to talk about some more specific instances of the Greek case, let me make a short comment on the ways in which we approach the individual scholars of the 18th century. I will follow Peter Gay in talking about the sub-worlds and mental universes of the scholars which normally reinforce each other but often are in conflict with one another.5

The first such sub-world, is the world of the cultural atmosphere of the age, the environment that assigns positive or negative values to ideas, passions and actions, pronouncing some exemplary, others unthinkable. This is the comprehensive world that sets the rules governing the rules of living. To quote Peter Gay: "Even rebels acknowledge its power... one leaps out of the magic circle of one's culture only so far".

The individual does not encounter his culture without the mediation of a narrower world: the social environment into which he is bom, in which he grows up and for the most part remains. His caste, his class, his ethnic and religious loyalties, his region and family, delimit the meaning of the words he uses and the ideals he follows, define what aspirations are legiti• mate and what limits are inescapable. Doubtless, the most interesting ideas emerge from a position on the margin of defined groups. But whenever ideas stand, they stand somewhere.

Ideas emerge not simply from the interplay of cultural and social environments; they carry on their backs the burden of the past, which exerts marked pressures. The scholar has his craft traditions, which dictate caution or encourage boldness, set permissible terms of rhetoric, establish an accepted hierarchy of genres, and in general place him into a sequence that can hardly, and never wholly, shaken off.

These are the three collective pressures - culture, society, tradition. They press on what is the ultimate shaper, the only carrier, of ideas: the individual. This makes the fourth sub- world, the self, so critically important. By "self I mean the uneasy collaboration between genetic endowment and acquired habits, affection and neuroses, conscious purposes and unconscious wishes, skills and stratagems. Whenever a scholar is seriously engaged with his work, the latter offers substantial evidence of the encounter between his private world and those three other worlds, which he reflects in his distorting mirror, relates to his needs and urges, and reproduces in his own way. Let me discuss a number of points related to the Greek case.6

5 Peter Gay, "Why was Enlightenment?", in 18th Century Studies, University Press of New England, New Hampshire, 1972, pp. 61-71. 6 An analytical discussion of a number of cases can be found in D. Dialetis, K. Gavroglu, M. Patiniotis, "The Sciences in the Greek Speaking Regions During the 17th and 18th Centuries", in Kostas Gavroglu (ed.), The Sciences in the European Periphery During the Enlightenment, vol. 2, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1999, pp. 41-72.

101 Kostas Gavroglu

6. The years after the fall of Constantinople

I shall mainly be concerned with the regions where Greek speaking scholars appropriated the new scientific ideas during the Enlightenment. These regions were on the whole part of the Ottoman Empire until the beginning of the 19th century where the Christian Orthodox Church through its highest institution, the Ecumenical Patriarchate at Constantinople, played a dominant role. The schism between Rome and Constantinople has had a very complicated history. A number of theological and political differences precipitated a crisis in 1054 when the representative of Pope Leo IX, Cardinal Umberto walked into Saint Sophia and left a letter excommunicating the Patriarch Mihail Kiroularios. Ostensibly the disagreement was over the question of filioque - that is on the insistence of the eastern Church that the holy spirit originates from both the father and the son, whereas Rome insisted that it originated only from the father. The enmity between the two Churches grew to such an extent that during the siege of Constantinople there were many people in the city wishing an Ottoman occupation over the rumoured salvation by the Catholic fleet.

Immediately after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Sultan Mohammed II - Mohammed the Conqueror - allowed the Patriarchate to continue its function. Most importantly, the Patriarchate was granted full jurisdiction over the education of the Orthodox Christian populations in the Ottoman Empire. It was nearly two centuries after the fall before the Patriarchate took full advantage of such a jurisdiction.

Most of the second half of the 17th century and a large part of the 18th century was a period of educational and economic rejuvenation of many Christian sectors in the Ottoman Empire. When referring to Christian sectors, I mean the Greeks, the Armenians, the Catholics who were mostly the descendants of the Venetians and Genoans, and all kind of small and sometimes not so small groups, mostly in Constantinople. Among all these, there was a group which would play a rather significant role intellectually, politically and educationally. These were the Fanariots, the name given to the Greeks who lived in Constantinople. From the end of the 17th century, the Fanariots acquired an increasingly important role in the administration of the Ottoman state. At the outset of the 18th century, representatives of the Fanariots were appointed by the Sultan as governors and hospodars in Wallachia and Moldavia. The Fanariots would soon take the lead among all the other Greeks dispersed in the Balkans; their political dominance would reinforce the already strong influence of the Greeks in the economic as well as cultural spheres in these regions, while at the same time as administrators and as diplomats they would adopt the line of enlightened despotism.

This period is characterised by three interdependent developments. First, the increasing involvement of this group of Greeks in the administrative affairs of the Ottoman Empire undermined the almost exclusive role of the clergy in mediating the relations of the Christians

102 The Sciences at the European Periphery during the Enlightenment

with the Ottoman Court. The second characteristic of this period is the increasing receptivity by the Fanariots of the new ideas coming from Europe. The third characteristic is related to the rise of a new social group. In addition to the Fanariots, the merchants started to socially assert themselves and played a rather significant role in the intellectual orientations of the period. The symbiotic relationship between the merchants and the quasi-administrative group of the Fanariots was not always without conflict. The social and economic prominence of these groups slowly led to the weakening of the absolute control the Church had on the schools and their curricula.

By the mid-18th century, Greek speaking scholars started moving all over Europe. Italy ceased to be the almost exclusive place they would go for their studies. Greek scholars started travelling to the Germanic countries, the Low countries, and Paris. They were, thus, intellectually influenced by a multitude of traditions and schools.

Before the young scholars ventured towards the centres of learning in Europe, they had been, since the middle of the 17th century, quite thoroughly educated in what came to be known as religious humanism. Religious humanism was an attempt to synthesise the teachings of ancient Greeks with the teachings of the Orthodox church fathers, considering the intellectual traditions originating in Greek antiquity and those of Christianity as a unity. Religious humanism became the means for moulding a kind of national consciousness by reclaiming Hellenistic roots through Orthodox Christian teaching. In the prevailing conditions of intense national reorientations and regroupings in Europe, such a strategy starting in the 17th century, aimed at upgrading the political role of the Patriarchate by providing an institutional expression to the ties between Orthodoxy and Hellenism. Such initiatives led not only to the establishment of new educational institutions, but eventually to the furthering of the church's dominance through the articulation of a new ideological and political agenda. The idea that the Orthodox Church must safeguard the great intel• lectual tradition of the nation and protect Hellenism from the 'Ottoman despot and the propaganda or the contrivances of Catholicism" was given a theoretical justification and an institutional expression.

Many scholars of the 18th century started returning home after the completion of their studies abroad. There were, basically, two reasons favouring the return of the scholars. The first was the growing need for scholars and teachers in the schools which were being founded as a result of the economically thriving of Greek communities dispersed in various regions both within the Ottoman Empire (such as Asia Minor) as well as outside it (such as Venice or Vienna). From the middle of the 18th century, economic well-being of the Greek communities within the Ottoman Empire with the accompanying social transformations brought about a number of changes in the educational system. There was a gradual re• definition of the teachers' role. The image of the teacher-priest whose work was a religious

103 Kostas Gavroglu mission gave way to another kind of scholar: the great majority of these teachers were priests, but their educational agenda became more secular and their actual work tended to be more "professional". The scholastic teaching of the works of the Fathers of the Orthodox Church, of ancient Greek literature and of Aristotle, gave way to a curriculum determined through negotiations with the community which had established and catered for the schools. Teaching began to serve the social, political and ideological priorities of these communities. These changes strengthened the relative autonomy of the scholars from the Patriarchate and reinforced their role as independent scholars. In these schools the curriculum was not solely determined by the church. It was, rather, the result of the largely similar but at times conflicting aims of the religious hierarchy, of the social groups with significant economic activity and of the scholars themselves. Thus, to comprehend what appeared to be a unified educational policy of the church, it becomes necessary to discuss the relatively autonomous agendas of each of these religious and social groups.

The second reason for the return of the scholars had to do with their gradual marginalization with respect to the established communities of natural philosophers in Europe. Almost all of the scholars who went to Europe were churchmen having the blessings of the Patriarchate. They were among the best who had mastered the amalgamation of ancient thought together with the teachings of the church. In their travels to Europe, however, they found a Europe quite different from what the narratives and experiences of the scholars of the preceding generation had led them to expect. By the middle of the eighteenth century they found a Europe dominated by the ideas of the Scientific Revolution, with flourishing scientific communities involved in the production of original scientific work. The institutions where the Greek scholars could indulge in the all-embracing studies of philosophy, continuing the kind of education they had already acquired, were progressively decreasing. The scholars were faced with a paralysing dilemma: if they were to become part of the community of the natural philosophers in the places where they were studying, the Greek scholars had to abandon their own tradition of religious humanism. Being ideologically unwilling and intellectually unable to proceed to such a break, they immersed themselves in the study of the new sciences with a view to returning home and assimilating them into the curriculum of religious humanism. A characteristic example of this attitude was the increasing desire to teach the new sciences in a manner that harmonised with the conceptions of the ancients. No wonder that almost all the Greek scholars explicitly expressed in their books their "debt" to their ancient predecessors, and independently from the kind of subject they were writing about, they almost always included a first chapter where they made clear that what would follow in the book was in perfect harmony with the teachings of the ancients. This conception of an uninterrupted continuity and of the perfection of ancient knowledge - a conception that was essentially adopted and promoted by the church - became one of the basic characteristics of the Greek scientific culture during the Enlightenment.

104 The Sciences at the European Periphery during the Enlightenment

One of the difficulties in trying to analyse the newly emerging community of Greek speaking scholars has to do with the relative lack of consensus among the scholars as to the constitutive discourse of the community. The study of the emergence of the scientific com• munity in the various countries of Western Europe deals with the ways a group of people managed to reach a consensus as to the discourse they were to use in discussing, disputing, agreeing and communicating their results in the new field. From the first decades of the eighteenth century until well into the nineteenth century, the discourse that the Greek speaking scholars developed was a predominantly philosophical discourse. Two, among the many reasons which legitimated such a discourse, are the following. Firstly, there were neither internal nor external factors to precipitate a crisis with Aristotelianism, and therefore no need to reformulate Aristotelianism, let alone initiate a break with Aristotelianism. Secondly, although these scholars appeared quite sympathetic to experiments, what they considered to be experiments was hardly different from demonstrations. The emphasis, usually indirect but often explicit, was on the use of the new material for (re)shaping philosophical arguments. It is quite remarkable that in almost all the books where there is a mention of experiments the emphasis is on observation and (qualitative) results, rather than on the process of measurement and numbers. In more than one place one finds passages to the effect that "rational thought is not less effective than experimental results".

After the middle of the 18th century, a great number of the Greek scholars became supporters of the heliocentric system. That heliocentrism found quite a few adherents was not indepen• dent of the fact that the polemics against heliocentrism were no longer particularly intense. Those who were against the heliocentric system presented the alternative cosmological sys• tems to their pupils, and came out in favour of the geocentric system, based either on the Scriptures and/or Aristotle or, as Evgenios Voulgaris did, on recent observations which could not find evidence of stellar parallax. We should also note that the Copernican system had a peculiar affinity to Greek thought: many authors presented the heliocentric system as origi• nating in Pythagorean ideas. Hence, heliocentrism could be considered as part of a national spiritual heritage - a reminder that the Church continued to be the guarantor of the traditions of the Greek nation. For that reason it was not strange to see both systems often accepted as valuable hypotheses: though geocentrism was to be preferred, heliocentrism - to the extent that it had its origins in ancient Greek thought - did not necessarily undermine the ontologi- cal contentions of religious humanism.

The French Revolution did not fit well in the Fanariots' political agenda. Many of them considered the Revolution and its consequences as endangering their prospects of increasing influence within the Ottoman Court. As the French Revolution was more and more projected as the realisation of the political and social ideas of the Enlightenment, the Fanariots' belief in and attachment to the ideas of the Enlightenment started to weaken. Also, as the anticler- icalist positions of the Revolution were associated with the spirit of the Enlightenment, many

105 Kostas Gavroglu

scholars - who, as we stressed, were men of Church - became less and less willing to be iden• tified with the ideas of Enlightenment. Naturally, we are not talking of a radical change which was adopted by all concerned: quite a few scholars, especially teachers, continued to remain strong adherents of the new scientific ideas. However, we do stress a change of heart among many scholars in their strong backing of the ideas of the Enlightenment, which, as a result, allowed a greater leverage to those in the Church who were strong opponents of these ideas from the very beginning.

7. Concluding remarks

It appears that a standard approach, with the emphasis on understanding the formation and function of social institutions such as patronage and the academies, is inadequate for under• standing the appropriation of the new ideas by the Greek speaking intellectuals during the 17th and, especially, the 18th century. I attempted to discuss some of the issues involved in the understanding of the ways in which the new scientific ideas were introduced and established in a region which was part of the Ottoman Empire. The jurisdiction of the Church over educational matters, its initiatives for sending scholars to Europe to be educated and the kind of dynamics created as the intended and, most interestingly, the unintended result of their scholarly work - whether by writing books or teaching - and the ambivalence of the Church towards the shifting philosophical allegiances and the ideological orientations of the scholars, all need to be assessed within the overall particularities of the Greek case. A number of complicated issues will also have to be taken into consideration: the relations of the Church with the Ottoman administration; the relations between the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the other (autonomous) Patriarchates each facing different problems of their own (e.g. the Moscow Patriarchate and the initiatives for modernisation by the new ruling classes of the 18th century); the relations of the Orthodox Church with the Holy See and the Protestant world, and the interests of the prominent and rich laymen in Constantinople, often in conflict with those elsewhere in the Balkans, are some of the additional parameters of the problems we are discussing.

The scholars of a national community, which was under occupation and had no state institutions of its own, were able to appropriate new scientific ideas in forms that could function within a specific cultural milieu. A synthesis of elements of ancient Greek thought with Orthodox Christian tradition had already emerged by the 18th century as a strong cohesive element in the intellectual identity of the Greek national consciousness. The problem under consideration here was the introduction of the new scientific ideas into a national community which was under occupation and which had no national state institutions of its own. This is a very unusual situation: in the absence of national state institutions, the community lacked the conditions which would allow the effectiveness of the educational system and of the training of students in these sciences to be socially assessed. Lacking such

106 The Sciences at the European Periphery during the Enlightenment a corroborative framework, where the usefulness of these sciences would be under continuous vigilance, ideological and, in fact, philosophical considerations became the dominant preoc• cupation of the scholars. Hence, the embedding of all these new ideas within a philosophical context, strongly at variance with that of the European scholars, became an aim in itself.

The introduction of the new scientific ideas by the Greek speaking scholars was a process almost exclusively directed to their appropriation for educational purposes. The apparent aim was to modernise the school curricula, but this did not mean a neutral attitude as to the possible ideological uses of these new ideas - especially the need to establish contact with the heritage of ancient Greece. The appropriation of the new scientific ideas necessarily involves a new discourse which reflects the network of local constraints. As I have attemp• ted to show, the appropriation of ideas refers to the ways devised to overcome cultural resistance and make the new ideas compatible with local intellectual traditions. Hence, understanding the character of the resistance to the new scientific ideas becomes of para• mount importance. And in the case of the Greek speaking regions the issue of resistance cannot be discussed independently from the character of the break with ancient Greek thought. Ideological and political contingencies of Christian societies under Ottoman rule during the Enlightenment, together with the dominance of the Greek scholars in the Balkans, called for an emphasis not on the break with the ancient modes of thought, but rather on establishing the continuity with ancient Greece. The Greek scholars saw the new developments in the sciences in Europe as evidence of the triumph of the programmatic declarations of ancient Greek thought with its emphasis on the supremacy of mathematics and rationality, rather than as a break with the ancient mode of thinking and the legitimation of a new way of dealing with nature. The developments in the sciences were not viewed as an intricate process which among other things involved a break with Aristotle, but rather as developments which came to verify the truth of the pronouncements of the ancients.

107

A Cost­Benefit Analysis of Science: The Dilemma of Engineering Schools in the 20th Century* Svante Lindqvist

In an earlier paper,1 I suggested that the basic characteristics of most engineering schools in the industrialised nations of the Western world are more or less the same. Their problems are anyway basically the same, and they seem to have more in common with one another than with other institutions of higher education in their respective countries. In terms of their institutional structure they are also surprisingly similar ­ the interesting feature is thus not their national differences but their similarities. In their introduction to the volume Education, Technology and Industrial Performance in Europe, 1850­1939, Robert Fox and Anna Guagnini stressed the points of similarity in higher technical education between the different countries in the late 19th and early 20th century.2 For the post­war period, I would like to argue that the European engineering schools have all gone through roughly the same process of ideological and institutional development and that their present situation is the result of a major ideological and institutional change that took place during the inter­war period and which was implemented during and after the war.

The structure of the engineering schools of today has basically been formed by the following three processes:

1. The European engineering schools emerged at the turn of the eighteenth century on the model of Ecole Polytechnique (1794) and other military academies, and many of them were founded during the first decades of the nineteenth century. These include Technische Universität in Wien (1815), Scuola d'Ingegneria in Rome (1817), UMIST in Manchester (1824) and Polytekniske Uiereanstalt in Copenhagen (1829), just to mention

■ A different version of this article has been published in Ingmar Grenthe et al. (eds.), Science Technology and Society: University Leadership Today and for the Twenty­First Century, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, 1998, pp. 105­16. 1 Svante Lindqvist, "Ideology and Institutional Structure: The Historical Origins of the Present Crisis in Swedish Engineering Schools", in Giuliano Pancaldi (ed.), Universities and the Sciences: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Bologna, 1993, pp. 181­215. : Robert Fox and Anna Guagnini (eds.), Education, Technology and Industrial Performance in Europe, 1850­1939, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.

109 Svante Lindqvist

a few. Their purpose was to train engineers during the process of industrialisation, and their basic structure grew out of and still reflects that purpose. This structure was set in most engineering schools by the time of the First World War.

2. During the inter-war period, many European engineering schools began a transformation from 19th-century teaching institutions into modem research universities. In this process, the engineering schools began to copy a set of values from the universities: values regarding "science" and "scientific research". These values were embedded in structure and in regulations, such as the requirements for "scientific skill" as a qualification for promotion. This new ideology is still more or less in conflict with the older ideology, which is "frozen" in their institutional structure.

3. A specific characteristic of the research in the engineering schools. It is normal for people to move to and from - several times in the course of a career - an engineering school on the one hand and industry, foreign universities and research laboratories on the other.

These three processes have contributed to the creation of a very specific type of institution with certain inherent tensions. One of these inherent tensions is their status as research universities which was developed within the institutional structure of nineteenth century educational establishments. Another is the ambition to pursue research in the engineering sciences within institutions that have copied a value system that encourages and rewards pure scientific research, an epistemologicaly different activity. The third is the constant tension between, on the one hand, the established ideology and institutional structure, and on the other the different values that are constantly being imposed from the outside by the high horizontal social mobility, primarily from industry and industrial research laboratories.

We must first discuss the limitations of using the concept "European Engineering Schools". These schools do stem from the same process, the early phase of industrialisation, and their structures have developed fairly similarly in response to the changing needs of industrial society. One reason why the engineering schools are so analogous in structure today is the fact that they have always kept a very close contact with one another. There are, for example, more exchanges and visits between my own university and other Swedish, European and US engineering schools than there are with other Swedish institutions of higher education - Grenoble is, in a manner of speaking, closer to Stockholm than Uppsala. This constant comparing and imitating has led to a diffusion of "best practice" of the institutional structure and the organisation of education and research; in a sense it resembles the travels of journey• men all over pre-industrial Europe.

Studies on the early development of European engineering schools can, of course, not use the present cultural and political definition of Europe to define the area of study. The early

110 A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Science: The Dilemma of Engineering Schools in the 20th Century

19th century development followed the borders of an older and larger Europe - included among these schools were e.g. Politechnika Warzawska (1826), St. Petersburg Institute of Technology (1828), Universitateu Politechnica in Bucharest (1819) and the Czech Technical University (1806). The habitat of the engineering schools emerging in the 19th century also includes the north-eastern parts of the United States - engineering schools such as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ( 1824), Rochester Institute of Technology ( 1829), Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1865) and Stevens Institute of Technology (1870). The borders of this development was defined culturally rather than politically, or rather: by the level of industrialisation.

Likewise, we can not study the development of the European engineering schools in the post-war period as a closed system. We must, for example, acknowledge the strong influence of the prestigious US engineering schools on the European development. The charismatic status assigned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology - and lately almost as much to Stanford University - has, at least in the Swedish context, been significant. Many of the institutional changes that have been implemented in Sweden have been influenced by or modelled after MIT. It has always cast a powerful and effective spell to chant the magic formula "Well, at MIT they do it..." to motivate any desired institutional change.

It is only lately that the dominant US influence has been, if not broken at least supplemented by an orientation towards a more formalised co-ordination among the European engineering schools. One example of this is the CLUSTER network, established in 1990, among ten European engineering schools: Eindhoven, Imperial College in London, Grenoble, Lausanne, Torino, Darmstadt, Trinity College Dublin, Karlsruhe, Louvain and my own university, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. One of the aims of this network is to "develop stable and confident relationships between its participants which will lead to close, but non• exclusive, co-operation", and this will include comparison of curricula and the organising of joint programmes.'

We should also consider the role that the European engineering schools have played as models for the establishment of similar institutions in non-European nations. The engineering schools can be seen as a part of the process rather than as a prerequisite for industrialisation, or as Robert Fox and Anna Guagnini concluded in their study: "... both education and industry appeared as the products of the same multi-faced social and economic background".4 To study the establishment of engineering schools in time and space beyond Europe will thus be a way

1 Quoted from the charter in the booklet CLUSTER, produced by the Public Relations Office, Imperial College London (n.d.). Cf. CLUSTER Newsletter, published by Division des Relations Extérieures de l'Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble. CLUSTER means "Cooperative Links between Uni• versities of Science and Technology for Education and Research". 4 Fox and Guagnini, op. cit., p. 5.

Ill Svante Lindqvist of mapping the diffusion of industrialisation. Furthermore, the different role models for these institutions will tell us something about the foreign influences at the time of their establish• ment. An example of this is the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (the IITs). The first was IIT Bangalore (1909), while the others were established in the 1950s and early 60s: Kharagpur (1950), Bombay (1958), Madras (1959), Kanpur (1960) and Delhi (1961). The ITTs were modelled after different European and US engineering schools, reflecting a multitude of foreign influences on the development of modern India: IIT Bombay was modelled after Russian engineering schools. ITT Madras after German, IIT Delhi after British, IIT Bangalore after French, and IIT Kanpur after US engineering schools (and MIT in particular).5

Given these cautious remarks about the need to avoid a too rigid geographical or political framework, I would still like to argue that we can discuss the European engineering schools as a particular kind of institutions - institutions which share the same basic structure and face similar problems. The following discussion will be illustrated by the case of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, but it follows from my argument that I would like to suggest that the conclusions may be of some general relevance.

An engineering school could be regarded as a black box with an input and an output. The ambition in the present paper is to focus on these inputs and outputs in order to illuminate some of the qualitative changes that have taken place during the post-war period. (I need not to bore you with the quantitative changes, easily summarised as "more", more of everything).

At the first level of approximation, the input could be equalled to the annual appropriations, grants or other revenues. There have been changes in the composition of these financial sources which become apparent if we consider the percentage of the various sources of the total annual income over time. During the period 1890-1970, the sources of income at the Royal Institute of Technology fell into five different categories (Fig. 1). The major component for the whole period was, of course, the annual state grant for education. Another source of income was, up to the academic year 1958/59 when they were abolished, the tuition fees paid by the students, varying between five and ten per cent of the total income. Together these two components constitute what was spent on the education of the engineering students. When it comes to research, the other aim of any university, there were three kinds of sources. One was a small trickling stream of private donations, never larger than a per cent or two of the total income. Of larger importance then were the commissions by industry for research and development. Such commissions occurred in the inter-war period, but they were not registered in the univer• sity accounts before 1939/40. During the post-war period, 1949/50-1969/70, this component

5 Only IIT Kharagpur can be described as Indian, its structure void of any distinct foreign influence. I am indebted to Professor Raman Srinavasan, IIT Bombay, for this information.

112 A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Science: The Dilemma of Engineering Schools in the 20th Century

was of the order of 10 per cent of the annual income. The largest source of income for research was the grants from the state through its various research councils. The Technical Research Council, instituted in 1942, was the first of the Swedish national research councils that was founded during and in the early years after the war.6 The grants from the state were on average of the order of 20 per cent in the post-war period. (The diagram seems to indicate that the grants for research were reduced in the 1960s, but this was only in proportion to the grants for education which followed the rapid expansion in the number of students during the 1960s).

Figure 1: Changes in sources of income at KTH, during the period 1890-1970

YEAR

(A) Annual grant by the State; (B) tuition fees; (C) private donations; (D) R&D projects commissioned by industry; (E) the research councils.

The first conclusion to be drawn from this diagram is an argument for discontinuity. It has been customary to regard the transformation of the engineering schools into research universities as a fairly continuous process. The importance of the changes during the war has been acknowledged, i.e. the importance of the new Technical Research Council and a new organisation for a basic infrastructure of assistants, technicians, instrument-makers and secretaries. Still, the argument has been made that this was a continuous process during the

6 Cf. Jan Hult, Bengt Nyström and Hans Weinberger (eds.), Technology and Industry: A Nordic Heritage, Science History Publications, Canton, 1992.

113 Svante Lindqvist inter-war period. The rhetoric of the time is part of the confusion, and the importance of ideological and formal institutional changes seems to imply the continuity of the process. One such formal change was that the Royal Institute was given the rights in 1927 to award a doctor's degree in engineering. Another change was that the new statutes of 1932 decreed that the function of the Royal Institute of Technology was "research in the engineering sciences and instruction"; before then "instruction" had come first. But the diagram shows that the actual effect of these changes was limited. It was only towards the end of the war that the financial means for research on an organised scale existed.

The discontinuity in this process must be stressed. In the case of the Royal Institute of Technology, its tradition as a research university is clearly not older than the early 1940s. Still, there is a persistent tendency to stress the continuity in this tradition: that there is a long, continuous tradition of doing important research of the highest quality that dates back to the 19th century. The same argument is often made for other engineering schools, but it should be noted that the proofs offered are often only the work of one or two individual professors. Such examples can be found for any institution and they do easily lend themselves to suggest continuity. These scientists may have been brilliant, their work may have been excellent, but as this diagram shows, they had no financial means to pursue research on the scale that involved other people on a continuous, wage-earning basis. That is: they could not train graduate students, and thus the Royal Institute of Technology was not a research university before the early 1940s.

But the crucial issue implied by this diagram is that almost all the money for research came with an address-label and a message. Very little of this money was given to the engineering school for "research" with no strings attached. There was almost no money that the governing body of the engineering school could distribute for research among its faculty at its own discretion. Whether it was grants from the state or from industry, they were all connected to already specified projects. These projects had by all means been awarded to the researchers in national competition with scientists at other institutions and were thus of high quality. But they were all the result of a sort of "negotiation" between the researchers in the engineering schools and their extramural patrons. They told you what they wanted you to apply for. Or more subtle: you guessed what they wanted you to apply for. In any case the decisions shaping the direction and content of research were more often than not made, directly or indirectly, outside the engineering school.

This, it should be noted, was in stark contrast to the situation in many well-endowed US universities. They had access to an annual income from revenues of their assets or from grants from alumni with no strings attached - money to be distributed for research after deliberation within the university. A more important difference, however, between the US and the European engineering schools in the post-war period was the role of defence

114 A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Science: The Dilemma of Engineering Schools in the 20th Century

contracts. In his book The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial- Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford, Stuart W. Leslie showed how the post-war alliance of the US military, high technology corporations, and academia redefined the American universities.7 The difference between the US and Europe is obvious, but we, too, should pose the questions Leslie raised.

The diagram in Fig. 1 ends in 1970, and it does thus not show the changes in the sources of financing that have taken place recently: a growing proportion in the annual incomes in the form of grants from the European Commission in Brussels - grants which we are constantly urged by the university to apply for. These, too, are to be competed for in the form of projects, and the effects of this remains to be seen.

Even at the simplest level of approximation, any attempt to define the output provides severe difficulties. The purpose of modern engineering schools is (like in any university) dual: education and research.

In the 19th century, when teaching was their sole responsibility, the total output could be measured simply by the annual number of graduates. This is still the measure of educational success, and even the quality of the output can be measured with some precision if we include factors such as the percentage of students graduating after four years, the average grades of the students admitted (measured on a national, comparative scale) et cetera. There are, however, complications, even if there is something of a "core curriculum" in any engineering education, dating back to Ecole Polytechnique, the desired ratio between the training in basic engineering disciplines vs. applied subjects is still a perpetual topic of argument in any engineering school. This ratio can by all means be measured in terms of hours of lectures and laboratory classes in the various topics, but it means that the final products of the various engineering schools (or of one school over time) can be very different.

There are large national differences in the ratio between basic and applied subjects to different educational traditions but the problem remains the same. The dilemma is that industry often, and in particular the larger companies, prefers engineers with a sound training in the basic disciplines, i.e. graduates as "semi-finished products" which industry can then train them• selves. But there are strong forces within the engineering schools in the struggle for the time of the students (which is proportional to the grants for education allotted to the various departments) to provide their time evenly between basic and applied subjects. However, the larger the component of applied topics is, the more "perishable" is the final product - i.e. the

7 Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science: The Military-lnduslrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford, Columbia University Press, New York, 1993.

115 Svante Lindqvist usefulness after a year or two of the newly graduated engineer's knowledge. The output of the engineering schools in terms of education is thus not only measured by exponential curves of an increasing number of graduates: behind these curves are final products of a very different quality - ranging from crude but solid "semi-finished products" to more well-groomed but vulnerable "perishable products".

To quantify and to evaluate the quality of the products of research is, however, as we know far more complicated and a perpetual issue of science policy studies. As a first approximation, the number of D. Eng.'s awarded annually can be used. Reference to the number of doctorates awarded annually (five-year averages) at the Royal Institute of Technology between 1927 (when the right to confer the doctorate degree was given) up to 1992/94 reveals an exponential growth that any engineering school could flaunt (Fig. 2). To ascertain the correlation between input and output it is necessary to refer to the changes in those incomes that were assigned for research, i.e. the sum of the annual grants from the national research councils, the commissions by industry, and the private donations (in 1969/70 prices) (Fig. 3).

Figure 2: Number of doctorates awarded annually (five-year averages) at KTH, from 1927 (when the right to confer the doctorate was granted) to 1993/94

116 A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Science: The Dilemma of Engineering Schools in the 20th Century

Figure 3: SEK in millions (1969/70 prices)

MSEK [1969/70 PRICES]

50-

The striking correlation between the two only tells us that the institution (like any well- organised system) is running well: the more you put in, the more you get out. It is a measure of efficiency at a fixed quality level (i.e. the requirements for a D.Eng.). While the effectiveness of various quality measures is being studied and debated among science policy scholars, most European universities are already busy implementing such measures in one form or the other.

The transformation of the Royal Institute of Technology into a research university after the war led to a stress on the merits of publications. In 1947, as No. 1 in a new series of trans• actions of the university, the following volume was published: List of Publications of Members of the Staff of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm* It listed all the publications by each faculty member, and the faculty members were arranged alphabetically - i.e. an insistence on individual rather than departmental merit. Supplements were published in 1951 and in 1957, listing new publications by the faculty since the last list as well as all the

8 List of Publications of Members of the Staff of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Kungl. Tekniska Högskolans Handlingar, n. 1, Kungl. Tekniska Högskolan, Stockholm, 1947.

117 Svante Lindqvist publications by new faculty members.9 No such lists have appeared since then (and in the 1970s the very suggestion would have been quite out of fashion). Earlier this year (1994), however, all departments were asked to submit lists of the total number of publications by their members during the last five years - a thing unheard of since 1957. This change to a stress on departmental rather than individual merit can perhaps be seen as a sign of the bureaucratisation of the research universities in the post-war period: departments, not individuals, are the administrative units for science policy measures. Furthermore, the departments were asked to classify their publications in "international refereed journals" and the last being "working papers in the department's own series" - it was not hard to visualise the coefficients that the numbers in the various categories were to be multiplied by in the corridors of power.

Such coefficients (based on the pecking-order of various form of publication), citation analyses, or peer reviews do not change the fundamental difficulty facing the engineering schools: namely that engineering science can not always be documented in or evaluated by publications.10 In a historical perspective, engineering has had little to do with publishing. The first engineers who published during the Renaissance did so in order to market themselves, to convince princes and other potential employers of their abilities. (A successful engineer like Leonardo da Vinci who never went unemployed had no need to publish.) When engineering knowledge became verbalised and published at the end of the 18th and early 19th century, the purpose was to educate others more efficiently and in larger numbers than was possible through the system of apprenticeships. (It was this change that gave rise to the emergence of the engineering schools, mentioned above.) These two reasons for publishing - individual acclaim or education - have historically been the only reasons why an engineer should bother to publish. Simply put: if a new construction or process works - why write about it and tell others how to do it instead of patenting, producing or selling it yourself?

9 Supplement No. 1 to List of Publications of Members of the Staff of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Kungl. Tekniska Högskolans Handlingar, n. 46, Kungl. Tekniska Högskolan, Stockholm, 1951; Supplement No. 2 to List of Publications of Members of the Staff of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Kungl. Tekniska Högskolans Handlingar, n. 113, Kungl. Tekniska Högskolan, Stockholm, 1957. 10 Cf. J. Torkel Wallmark et al., "Measurement of Output from University Research: A Case Study", IEEE Transactions of Engineering Management, 35, 1988, pp. 175-80; Douglas H. McQueen and J. Torkel Wallmark, "Innovation Output and Academic Performance at Chalmers University of Technology", OMEGA International Journal of Management Science, 12, 1984, pp. 457-464; Donald Light Jr., "Thinking about Faculty", Daedalus, 103, n. 4, Fall 1974, pp. 258-264; M. Gibbons and L. Georghiou, "Evaluation of Research: A Survey of Some Current Experience and Practice", in Policies and Directions for Science and Research, Department of Science/OECD, Canberra, 1986, pp. 184-201.

118 A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Science: The Dilemma of Engineering Schools in the 20th Century

In the late 19th century, the engineering communities began to copy the professional orga• nisations of science with its societies, meetings and journals," but the historical problem remained: why should a good engineer publish unless he was out of work or needed to educate others? The system of promotion that has been established in the engineering schools in the 20th century has copied the universities in their stress on publications as the foremost ground of promotion. The technological knowledge in the engineering school is, however, not only maintained, developed and distributed through publications: patents, co• operative projects with industry, the development of new products and industrial processes (rarely documented in "international refereed journals") are just as important. But how are these qualities to be measured? Efficient processes, useful manuals, the successful training of others, good working relations with industry, et cetera are hard to measure. It would, I suppose, be impossible to publish a "List of Activities of Members of the Staff of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm".

This simple cost-benefit analysis has illustrated a growing dilemma in our time, a critical issue in the search for "objective" criteria to evaluate quality and productivity of research in the engineering sciences. By copying a value system from the universities in their attempt to benefit from the status traditionally associated with science - instead of trying to develop a value system more akin to the epistemology of engineering - the engineering schools have introduced a tension from which perhaps most of them still suffer.

11 Edwin T. Layton Jr., "Mirror-Image Twins: The Communities of Science and Technology in 19th- century America", Technology and Culture, 12, 1977, pp. 562-580.

119

Structures of Innovation and Their Historic Roots: The Case of Medicine Stuart Blume

Technological change and medical specialisation

Historians are generally agreed that the decades around 1900 saw the emergence of that dependence of medicine on technology which has since become so characteristic. The techno• logical character of modem medicine is manifest at two levels, both of which may have their origins at that time. On the one hand, a number of the instruments which have since become familiar, and still central to diagnostic practice, were first constructed and tried out. The x-ray, or röntgen apparatus, and the electrocardiograph (ECG) were two such instruments. For Howell, these two instruments exemplify early 20th century technological medicine even though, as he shows, their interest as research tools grew very much more rapidly than did their entry into routine medical practice (Howell 1995). The second level is a cultural one: the belief in science-based technology as mankind's "best hope" for improvement in physical (and perhaps mental) well-being. Knight argues, indeed, that the röntgen apparatus was uniquely important in bringing about a shift from hygiene and social improvement to "miracle technology" as the basis of hope in a healthier future (Knight 1986). It may be significant that almost immediately, Röntgen's discovery triggered the hope that it might be possible to observe thought itself. Only now, a century later, are similar claims made on behalf of today's wonder technologies (notably PET scanning) becoming the dominant orthodoxy.

Whatever the hopes and the visions which they may have inspired, in their early forms such instruments presented users with major difficulties: problems not only of the development of a standardised language of interpretation, but also problems of size and immobility, unreliability, lack of technical standardisation. Both were significantly modified, and have undergone innumerable transformations in becoming what they are today.

Explanations of the emergence of technological medicine have been sought in new managerial ideologies and practices (Howell, loc. cit., Chapter 2), in modern "visual" sensibilities (Cartwright 1992), in struggles around the academization/professionalisation of medicine (Lawrence 1985a), and a correspondingly rich literature has emerged on the impli• cations of these new technologies: from "reading" the images and graphs produced (Pasveer 1989, de Chadarevian 1993) to their (halting) introduction into routine practice. By contrast, relatively little research has been addressed to the development work through which devices

121 Stuart Blume were gradually adapted to (changing) medical practice. Whilst many studies show how finely tuned to the concerns of specialised hospital medicine technological innovation has become (see e.g. Blume 1992, Rosenberg Gelijns and Dawkins 1995), relatively little is known about this earlier period of technological change. This paper is concerned with these "historic roots" of the modern system of medical innovation.

Half a century ago the historian/physician George Rosen argued for a strong connection between technological innovation and processes of specialisation in medicine (Rosen 1944). Rosen was concerned to explain specialisation, not technological change, but his argument is nevertheless apposite. With the emergence of ontologicai and localised theories of disease in the early 19th century, argues Rosen, emerged a need for ways of exploring the internal organs of the body, and their (mal)functioning. Within a relatively short space of time, and as a con• sequence, a variety of new investigative devices were created. Whilst the new theories of disease opened the way for medical practice specialised in specific organs and pathologies, the new technologies made it practically possible. Rosen illustrated his argument principally with reference to one of the earliest specialities to emerge: ophthalmology.

"Prior to 1851 when Helmholtz invented the ophthalmoscope," Rosen wrote, "clinical ophthalmology in examinations of patients with ocular disease relied on unaided visual inspection, not having any other instrumental means but the use of a magnifying glass" (Rosen 1944, p. 23). Helmholtz' device made investigation of the internal structures of the eye possible, and opened up the way for new approaches to the delineation and treatment of distinct eye diseases. From having been a roughly identifiable area within general surgery, ophthalmology developed a new identity in relation to internal medicine. Technological innovation and incipient specialisation initiated - and initiate - a number of complex processes which Rosen went on to discuss. One of these was said to be the search for still better technologies. Rosen argued that the acceptance of the ophthalmoscope led to "a constant suc• cession of new and more refined diagnostic methods and instruments" (Rosen, loc. cit., p. 24).

A further process was the "attachment" of a technique to a particular speciality:

A technique becomes attached to a speciality as a result of the organic growth of the particular field of activity, that is, in consequence of the functional importance which the technique has or has had for the origin and continued development of the speciality, e.g. laryngeal visualisation by means of a mirror for laryngology. As the speciality develops and new techniques are devised... these techniques tend to assume a traditional association with the speciality in question (Rosen, loc. cit., p. 26).

Rosen's observations provide the starting point for the work to be discussed here. Refor• mulated, the question comes to relate to the consequences for the innovation process of

122 Structures of Innovation and Their Historic Roots: The Case of Medicine specialisation in medicine. Did specialisation - the emergence of distinctive (often distinctively licensed) areas of medical practice and expertise - entail the attempt to secure jurisdictional privileges within the innovation process? Do modifications to technologies - like the röntgen apparatus and the electrocardiograph - increasingly come to reflect the requirements of increasingly distinctive groups of clinicians? In this paper I shall argue that whilst these hypotheses seem plausible in the case of x-ray technology, matters seem rather different in the case of the ECG. A comprehensive account of the evolution of the modern system of medical innovation, and of its diversity, remains to be written.

The origins of the new technologies

Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of what he called "x-rays", announced at the end of 1895, took the world by storm. The background to his discovery is as follows (Glasser 1934). At the end of the 19th century a number of physicists were interested in the stream of particles, later called cathode rays, produced in vacuum tubes fitted with positive and negative electrodes. These rays appeared not to penetrate the walls of the tube in which they were produced, and so were very difficult to investigate. In spring 1894, Röntgen, professor of physics at the University of Wiirtzberg in Bavaria, became interested in these rays. In autumn 1895, according to the conventional account, Röntgen had an idea. Perhaps these cathode rays actually did penetrate the glass tube, but the luminescence by which they would be detected had been obscured by light, so that they had been missed. In November 1895 Röntgen tested his idea and seemingly by accident, in setting up his apparatus he discovered that the detecting screen was caused to fluoresce whilst still a metre from the tube. Cathode rays had never been known to travel more than centimetres through air, and Röntgen thought it likely that some other kind of radiation was involved. Thanks to rapid success and a co-operative journal editor, on 1 January 1896 Röntgen was able to distribute copies of his article "Über eine Neue Art von Strahlen". The paper dealt, among other matters, with the penetrating powers of the new rays. In examining this, Röntgen had also looked at their penetration of the human hand. His paper comments briefly on this: "If the hand is held between the discharge apparatus and the screen, one sees darker shadows of the bones against the less dark shadows of the whole hand". An x-ray "photograph" of his wife's hand, showing bones and ring, accompanied the text. Copies were sent to a number of eminent physicists including, in Britain, Lord Kelvin and Arthur Schuster, German-born professor of physics in Manchester. In Vienna Franz Exner was so impressed with the article and, especially, by the "photographs" included with it that he informed Die Presse, Vienna's leading newspaper, which published news of Röntgen's discovery on its front page on 5 January 1896. The story spread through the world's newspapers like wildfire. It was first reported in England, in the Daily Chronicle, on the 6th of January, under the title "Remarkable scientific discovery" (Posner 1970). The newspaper article, appearing only 5 days after Röntgen had circulated his report, already referred to possible medical uses of the new technique, commenting that it

123 Stuart Blume

will be "an excellent expedient for surgeons, particularly in cases of complicated fractures of limbs, in searching for the bullets of the wounded, etc.".

The apparatus required for replication of Röntgen's experiment was reasonably available: anyone with access to a physics laboratory could try it out. On the basis of reading the newspaper report an English electrical engineer was able to show a röntgen photograph of his own hand to friends within one day. For some time the apparatus was as much a fairground attraction as anything else. The remarkable powers of the rays became a matter for popular speculation, and an x-ray photograph something to be prized by the woman of fashion: a significant cultural artefact (Reiser 1978, pp. 60-1). Physicists, engineers, physicians were no less fascinated, and more serious investigations were pursued widely and with enthusiasm.

The medical press rapidly took the matter up. Still in early January the Lancet, at first amused, carried a report from its Berlin correspondent to the effect that, there, general opinion was that "the new discovery will produce quite a revolution in the present methods of examining the interior of the human body".' Surgeons in particular, practical men more oriented to tools than their physician-colleagues, were rapidly convinced of the value of the new device. A widespread pattern of cooperation seems to have emerged in various British cities. Generally speaking, a "local doctor or surgeon with a suitable case, usually a needle lodged in the patient's finger or foot, would seek the help of a science professor in the local college or university, and together they would produce a radiograph" (Burrows 1986, p. 20). It has been claimed that more than a thousand articles were published on Röntgen's discovery in the course of 1896 (Glasser 1934) including (significantly) many in the trade journals of the electrical industry.

It is important to note that in the early years the practice of röntgenography, or "skiagraphy", was in no way limited to a specialised class of medical practitioners. Alan Campbell Swinton, who made the first x-ray picture of the human body in Britain - noted with interest by The Times - was a self-taught electrical engineer. Like others with backgrounds in engineering and photography he set up in private practice, offering a "lay" röntgenographic service.

The electrocardiograph also emerged in a non-medical context, but a very different one. Willem van Einthoven, Professor of Physiology at the University of Leiden, set out to

1 By February 1896 "traumatic, osteomyelitic, and tuberculous bone lesions had been shown on radiographs at the Salpêtrière and Trousseau Hospitals in Paris... In the United States, E.B. Frost had photographed a broken ulna on 3 February... One day after Frost's excellent photograph had appeared in Science the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association was still very sceptical..." (Posner 1970).

124 Structures of Innovation and Their Historic Roots: The Case of Medicine

develop his string galvanometer for purposes which explicitly derived from his programme of electrophysiological research on the heart.

Whilst the discovery of electromotive effects in living muscle is generally attributed to the Italian anatomist Galvani, investigation of the heart along these lines had to wait almost 100 years. Through this period the search for increasingly sensitive and robust devices for recording bioelectric currents went on. Electrophysiologists active at this time included Sir J. S. Burdon-Sanderson (Professor of Physiology at University College London from 1874-1882) whose work on electrophysiology began in 1873 with the Venus fly trap (appar• ently at the suggestion of Charles Darwin) (Frank 1988). Burdon-Sanderson, like various other investigators in the 1870s and 1880s, used a device known as the capillary electrometer, which had been invented by G. Lippmann (Professor of Physics at the Sorbonne) a little while before. The device depended on the principle that the surface tension at the junction of mercury and dilute sulphuric acid changes when the electrical potential between them is changed.

In 1887 A. D. Waller, an associate of Burdon-Sanderson, found that the electrical activity of the human heart could be recorded with this device from the outside of the chest (i.e. without exposing the heart). Trained initially as a physician, Waller had subsequently abandoned medical practice in order to devote himself to research in physiology, and in 1883 had become a lecturer in physiology in London University. Waller was probably the first to record the electrical activity of the live human heart. Initially at least, Waller was a firm believer in the need for closer contact between physiologists and practising physicians. Nevertheless, despite his proselytizing on behalf of electrophysiological methods, Waller's interest was limited to normal variation. He displayed no public interest in possible clinical applications (Frank 1988, pp. 249-50). Nor was Waller much interested in the technique by which his representations were produced.

In September 1889 Waller demonstrated his findings at the First International Congress of Physiologists, held in Basel. Among his audience was Willem van Einthoven, the 29 year old Professor of Physiology at Leiden. Unlike Waller, Einthoven (according to his later assistant de Waart) was always much interested in research technique. Inspired by Waller's results, Einthoven established a comprehensive research programme in which technical improvement was an important element (Waart 1957, Frank 1988, p. 252). Around 1900 Einthoven began to try to develop a different kind of device based on the principle of the galvanometer. Galvanometers were already in use in physics. Many of them, like that designed by d'Arson val, consisted of a coiled wire suspended within the magnetic field of a permanent magnet. Variations in current passing through the coil caused it to move and the movements could be observed (for example by means of mirrors attached to the coil). Einthoven set out to develop a more sensitive galvanometer. His device, called a string galvanometer, was first announced in 1901, and then discussed in detail in a long paper published in 1903 (Einthoven

125 Stuart Blume

1903). It consisted basically of an electromagnet between the poles of which was suspended a quartz fibre coated with a conducting metal (silver). Electrical currents from the heart were transmitted down this conducting fibre, hence giving rise to a small magnetic field which varied with the magnitude of the current flowing. Because of interactions with the constant magnetic field of the electromagnet, the string moved. For Einthoven's purposes the deflections, proportional to the heart's electrical current, had to be recorded as a function of time. This tricky problem was dealt with as follows. Holes were drilled through the electromagnet and a bright light was directed through them by a system of lenses such as used in a microscope. The shadow of the (moving) string was focused, by the lenses, onto a uniformly falling photographic plate. Time lines were projected onto the photographic plate by means of a rotating bicycle wheel, the spokes of which interrupted the light beam at regular intervals of time. Construction of the device was a major feat, involving a variety of very different problems. The end result, with its huge 22,000 gauss water cooled electro• magnet, weighed 600 lb. and required five people to operate.

Einthoven's device was very difficult indeed to build. Physiologists and, gradually, phy• sicians, who were interested in trying it out were inclined to tum to Einthoven himself for help. Although he did have a second machine constructed for Waller, by then an old friend, Einthoven was not willing to turn his workshop into a manufactory, and matters moved slowly. Moreover, the growth of clinical interest in the galvanometer was bound up with an important difference of opinion regarding the nature of heart disease.

Beginnings of commercial manufacture

Given the readiness with which an x-ray apparatus could be constructed and the enormous complexity of Einthoven's machine, given popular enthusiasm for the one and the esoteric and contested nature of the other, differences in industrial response are hardly surprising.

Röntgen was not interested in patenting his discovery, refusing various financial induce• ments to do so, so that the apparatus could be freely produced. In Britain three firms, estab• lished producers of scientific instruments and microscopes, started manufacturing röntgen tubes in the course of 1896 (Tunnicliffe 1973). Within the year a comprehensive range of x-ray apparatus was being offered for sale. On the basis of advertisements placed in the Electrical Review Carlson estimates that by December of that year at least eight firms were offering x-ray apparatus for sale in the USA (Carlson 1991). With remarkable speed, a thriving and dynamic x-ray industry came into being.

We can trace the process of industrial involvement more carefully in the case of the General Electrical Company2. E W Rice, a company Vice-President, was soon convinced that a market for x-ray tubes and apparatus existed (Carlson loc. cit.). In March 1896 he asked

126 Structures of Innovation and Their Historic Roots: The Case of Medicine

Elihu Thomson to design an x-ray apparatus (tube plus high frequency coil to power it) for commercial sale. Within a month GE was advertising its new product line in Electrical Review. Within that same month Thomson had designed an improved double focus tube, and was working on problems of quality, performance and durability. GE decided to sell Thomson's new tube for twelve dollars. By August 1896 the firm's catalogue listed a full range of x-ray products: the new tube, excitation apparatus, interrupters, and other accessories. There was confidence that with their existing network of salesmen they would be able to reach the market among doctors, hospitals and scientific laboratories which they envisaged.

Unlike Röntgen, Einthoven took a close interest in the production of his string galvanometer. He was led himself to approach possible manufacturers by virtue of the stream of visitors to his laboratory who wanted him to build a similar device for them. Soon after the appearance of his 1903 paper Einthoven approached Siemens and Halske, but for various reasons the company proved not to be interested (Allart 1996, p. 16). Later that same year the Munich instrument maker Max Edelmann visited Einthoven, and a deal was struck. Edelmann would manufacture and market the galvanometer and would pay Einthoven a royalty for each one sold. When in early 1907 Edelmann found that he could improve on Einthoven's design he stopped paying the royalty. Disturbed and upset, Einthoven refused to have anything more to do with Edelmann and looked for an alternative manufacturer. He approached Horace Darwin, youngest son of Charles and a director of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company.

A representative of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company (CSIC) visited Einthoven's laboratory at Leiden but was not impressed with the commercial possibilities of an instrument that occupied two rooms and required five people to operate! The CSIC decided to concentrate first on the string galvanometer alone, and try to market this without the extra refinements on which its applications in study of the heart involved. W. D. Duddell FRS of the CSIC then began to redesign the Einthoven electrocardiograph. Duddell succeeded in greatly reducing the size of the electromagnet and in eliminating the troublesome water jacket (used for cooling in Einthoven's design). His design provided similar performance with greatly reduced size and weight. Duddell also enclosed the string in a "string carrier", in order to make it less sensitive to draughts and convection currents. "This wise precaution established the Cambridge instrument as the most stable and robust of its kind. Einthoven carefully tested and approved this new instrument and first described it in 1909" (Barron, 1950).

The first CSIC electrocardiograph - called the "Einthoven String Galvanometer" - was built in 1907 and delivered to E. A. Schäfer (another associate of Burdon-Sanderson) in January

2 The General Electrical Company had been formed in 1892 through a merger of the Thomson-Houston Company and Edison General (an amalgamation of Thomas Edison's various manufacturing interests). The new firm had an income in the tens of millions.

127 Stuart Blume

1908. The Company's catalogue pointed out that whilst the instrument had been developed for physiological work, it might be used wherever records of small alternating or pulsed currents were required (and use during shipboard insulation testing of submarine cables was suggested) (Cattermole and Wolfe 1987, p. 225). A long paper published by Einthoven in 1908 persuaded the Company of the practical diagnostic importance of the device. Further design work led to the development of a "table model" electrocardiograph in 1911, the first of which was delivered on loan to (Sir) Thomas Lewis at University College Hospital (London). Lewis, who had been using an Edelmann instrument, was one of the small number of "New Cardiologists" in the years leading up to the First World War.

In 1909 an Edelmann device was brought to the USA by A. E. Cohn, who had spent the summer in London working with Lewis and who returned to a post at the Mount Sinai Hospital. In 1911 Cohn moved to the Rockefeller Institute. Cohn got to know H. B. Williams (originally trained as a physician but who had given up medical practice for research in physiology, and who later became Professor of Physiology at Columbia University). Both gradually found themselves dissatisfied with their Edelmann instruments, and Williams undertook to design a different machine.3 This he did. It was constructed by a New York mechanic named Charles Hindle and delivered in May 1915 to Cohn.4

Between 1911 and the outbreak of war in 1914 some thirty five cardiographs were sold by the CSIC, of which ten went to the USA.

Reception by clinicians

As the first few devices began to be installed in hospitals - more rapidly in the case of the readily available and relatively cheap Röntgen apparatus - prevalent opinion remained sceptical. There was continuing resistance from senior doctors to any major change in diagnostic practice. The accounts of pioneers involved in both areas attest to this.

Here is how A. E. Barclay describes his experiences at the London Hospital (where x-rays were introduced in the course of 1896, one of the first departments in Britain) around the tum of the century (cited in Burrows, pp. 79-84):

3 In a memorial volume commemorating Einthoven's birth, his one time collaborator, de Waart, writes that Einthoven's papers were marked by the extent to which all important details of construction were provided, so that "everyone would be in a position - so as is proper in science - to build the instrument described"; de Waart goes on to note that Williams actually reconstructed Einthoven's complete galva• nometer room (Waart, 1957, p. 89). 4 Soon afterwards Hindle founded his own company, the Hindle Instrument Company, the firstAmerica n company to manufacture string galvanometers and between 1914 and 1921 he manufactured three models of electrocardiograph. In 1922 the Hindle Company was amalgamated with the Cambridge Instrument Co. in New York, which then became known as the Cambridge Instrument Company of America.

128 Structures of Innovation and Their Historic Roots: The Case of Medicine

Few of the surgeons yet fully trusted x-ray plates and I remember a very heated argument between two of the honoraries, one of whom was an enthusiast for their use, the other maintaining that his clinical examination was more reliable... Sometimes, hopefully rather than expectantly, x-ray plates were asked for of the chest, kidneys, bladder, or even the spine... For practical purposes, however, the x-ray diagnostic service was confined to fractures and metallic foreign bodies, particularly the many cases of needles in the hand that came from the tailoring trade of Whitechapel.

The first medically qualified rontgenologists were all too aware both of the way in which treating physicians and surgeons viewed their place in the medical scheme of things and of the problem posed by the medically unqualified. The attempt to establish their own specialised medical role would have to be fought on two fronts. In the larger British hospitals a medical man generally was in charge of x-ray work. However, as A. E. Barclay recollected, he was generally regarded as a technician. "It was only slowly that his colleagues came to recognise that the radiologist's constant experience in interpretation made his opinion on x-ray plates of real value, yet by 1914 there were still very few who had attained anything approximating to consultant relations with their colleagues" (quoted in Burrows, p. 179).

Similar initial resistance greeted the introduction of electrocardiographs into hospitals. Einthoven had been continuing to use his new device to explore both theoretical aspects and diagnostic implications of the heart's electrical activity. George E. Burch, the historian of electrocardiography, has suggested that Einthoven's 1908 paper, in which " he firmly established the diagnostic possibilities of the electrocardiograph", was a crucial one (Burch and De Pasquale, 1964, pp. 123-4). Through its presentation of electrocardiograms from patients with a wide variety of cardiac diseases, Einthoven's paper demonstrated to the medical profession that the electrocardiograph was of practical as well as theoretical importance. "It must be remembered", write Burch and De Pasquale (loc. cit., p. 124), "that in 1908 the clinician looked on such instruments as the [...] capillary electrometer as gadgets to be used by physiologists in the study of frogs and turtles. As far as clinicians were concerned, the string galvanometer was just another gadget which could not possibly be of any concern to a physi• cian busily practising his profession". Lawrence, writing of Britain, is of a similar opinion:

When the first ECG machine was installed at St Bartholomew's Hospital, it was placed in the physiology department, so as not, it was said, to "offend too brusquely the susceptibilities of more conservative colleagues". Sir Ian Hill remembered that "Those who, like myself, experimented with this instrument were thought to be rather dangerous backroom boys, unfit to be trusted with the welfare of patients" (Lawrence 1985b, p. 10).

Inevitably, it took more than Einthoven's publications to bring about a change in attitudes. Thomas Lewis most famously, though not he alone, laboured mightily to persuade medical

129 Stuart Blume colleagues of the value of this unfamiliar kind of data. In a 1911 lecture to the Royal Society of Medicine, for example, Lewis argued that

restricting comparison to hospital patients, I have little hesitation in stating that in the routine examination of the heart patients the galvanometer method affords, or will afford in the near future, information of equal or greater value than any other method at our disposal, be it instrumental or subjective. It must be allotted at least an equal place with percussion and auscultation, with sphygmomanometry and radiography (Lewis 1911).

Yet it is clear from the printed discussion of his lecture that the majority among his (medical) audience had difficulty in understanding what Lewis was trying to explain.

Despite common scepticism on the part of senior clinicians, there were also important differences in the initial reception of the two devices. As we have seen, Röntgen's apparatus could be readily assembled. The images it produced were recognisable and appealing. Their appeal to the popular imagination is clear from not only newspaper articles, but the stories, verse, and fairground shows to which röntgen technology gave rise (Knight 1986). Moreover, their value was rapidly perceived by surgeons, who had long been obliged to search for foreign objects (including of course bullets) and for fractures. Surgeons were practical men who did not share their physician-colleagues' distaste for devices. By contrast interest in the string galvanometer emerged exclusively among the "New Cardiologists", a small group of physiologically-oriented physicians. The device became associated, in the minds of medical practitioners generally, with a specialised and science-based practice to which they were fiercely opposed (Lawrence 1985b). At the same time not only were the representations of cardiac activity which it provided arcane and difficult to understand, but the instrument by which they were to be generated was difficult to build.

Resistance to the introduction of the cardiograph into clinical practice thus derived not only from general dislike of new technology, but also from specific and conflicting approaches to the nature of heart pathology. Use of an instrument like Einthoven's which had its origins in experimental physiology, went hand in hand with a functional approach to heart disease (Lawrence 1985b). The dominant view was based in morbid anatomy, with heart pathologies distinguished in structural terms. Emphasis on physiological functioning of the heart, beginning to develop in the 1880s became associated with a "New Cardiology". The ques• tions to be tackled with the new device were framed by this specific perspective.

The circumstances surrounding the use of the two technologies, around this time were very different. Diagnostic x-ray was widely used. Sales of this kind of equipment were in the thousands, and pictures could be easily made. Many of those making them were not medically qualified, and leaders of the incipient medical speciality of radiology stressed the special skills

130 Structures of Innovation and Their Historic Roots: The Case of Medicine

which (only) they had in interpretation. The ECG was not widely used. Sales of instruments were perhaps two orders of magnitude less. The few who did use the ECG were a small minority within internal medicine with an interest in physiology and a functional approach to heart disease. Their concern was not to exclude non-qualified users but - very differently - to convince medical colleagues of the practical value of the unfamiliar representations which the instrument produced, and of the functional approach which they entailed.

Processes of technological change

Recent historiography makes clear that the slow acceptance of these two devices as indis• pensable features of diagnostic medicine was by no means merely a consequence of their technical failings. Far more was at stake. But it remains the case that technical inadequacies of early models were apparent to all who worked with them. For example, users of the ECG faced problems ranging from temperature-sensitivity of the fibre or string, to disappearance of the image in the optical field, to problems of making connections between hospital wards and instruments. The instruments available in the immediate post World War I period were not portable. Where an ECG was to be made of a patient who could not be moved, leads had to be run from the electrocardiograph to the ward. In Cambridge, in 1916, an instrument installed in the pathology laboratory was connected to Addenbrooke's Hospital by leads a mile long!

Improvements were made, such that not only interpretative conventions for reading the images became standardised, but the devices themselves were rendered reliable and convenient to use. What place did systematised clinical experience play in this process of improvement? In modern medicine, as I have already suggested, constant iteration between the needs and priorities of clinical practice and the possibilities and limitations of the technology is fundamental. In the development of the CT scanner, for example, the questions of "what will it do in the (neuro)radiological clinic" and "how can it be made to do that job better" were of the essence (Blume 1992, ch. 5). But in how far was this also the case with the imaging technologies we are discussing here?

In the early years of x-ray technology a (highly provisional) answer to that question would be "scarcely at all". The following episode is indicative. Elihu Thomson, whose work had been the means of GE's entry to the new market, in the course of 1896 became interested in the medical applications of the technology. Perhaps it helped that, having broken his leg in a bicycle accident, he was himself able to profit from röntgenography. Thomson was often asked to speak to medical organisations, and must have learned a good deal about how x-ray devices were being used. Yet it appears that these experiences had little influence on his further work on x-ray technology. Carlson's study of his work shows how Thomson continued to focus on the issues which had previously concerned him, such as more effectively regulating the vacuum. Carlson suggests this continuity is in need of explanation

131 Stuart Blume and, further, that the explanation might be found in the fact that Thomson saw his own reputation as depending principally on how electrical engineers and physicists, not medical men, valued his work. The fact that Thomson soon afterwards moved on to other researches attests to the plausibility of this contention.

The lack of significant input from what Thomson learned of medical uses of x-ray is also indicative of commercial and innovation strategies in the early years of the industry. Manu• facturers addressed themselves to a relatively ill-defined group of customers, united principally by their fascination with technique. It would appear that, at least as far as GE is concerned, clinical experience was not a major or direct stimulus to innovation. Rather we can think of market considerations as having led management to view the area as one meriting further investment,5 and physical and engineering expertise as the source of the improvements sought.

The situation contrasts with innovation in the early years of electrocardiography. There are numerous indications that the experience of practitioners with the instrument-in-use played a very much more central role in the process of improving the ECG. This is exemplified by the CSIC's relations with Thomas Lewis, of which Cattermole and Wolfe point out that "for many years the Company would not market any new piece of cardiographie equipment until it had been thoroughly tested and approved by Dr Lewis" (loc. cit., p. 225).

Although these differences remain to be studied in detail, they seem plausible. The ECG had emerged within a relatively close-knit community of physiologists and physiologically- inclined "cardiologists". Their cognitive and social aspirations and concerns, expressed not least by Lewis in his relations with CSIC, were a powerful influence on further development. X-ray technology, by contrast, was not conceived within any comparably structured set of intellectual or professional interests. A diversity of technical designs was sustained by both the heterogeneous character and technical orientation of early users6 and by the commercial interests of a large number of competing manufacturers.

5 For industry as well as medicine World War I was something of a watershed. On the one hand it made the potential of the new diagnostic technology apparent to physicians, whilst on the other industry began to see that very large markets could be in the offing. It was the sheer volume of sales to the military during the War that persuaded General Electric (which had ceased to produce x-ray equipment around 1905) that they should become a "full line X-ray equipment supplier" (Reich 1985, p. 91). 6 A survey of the members of the American Roentgen Ray Society in 1910 showed that there too many had started working with x-rays in 1896 or 1897 "as physicists, engineers, electricians, photographers or in other technical capacities," but "had thereafter gone back to school and earned their MD degrees specifically for the purpose of qualifying as a radiologist" (Brecher and Brecher 1969, p. 109).

132 Structures of Innovation and Their Historic Roots: The Case of Medicine

Thus Dr. A. U. Desjardins, from the Mayo Clinic, argued that the ready availability and rapid development of the röntgen apparatus was a barrier to professional closure (Desjardins 1929). "The trend of development in the technic of röntgenography," Desjardins wrote,

has been marked chiefly by the constant endeavour of manufacturers to produce generators the operation of which would be so simple that an increasing number of physicians would be impelled to purchase them, regardless of their lack of that extensive body of special medical and physical knowledge necessary to take full and intelligent advantage of the possibilities of röntgenography...

Associated with this was the commercial practice of the new industry:

This trend toward simplified construction, ease of manipulation, and standardisation of technical procedures, accompanied by a tremendous extension of the credit system in commercial transactions, a corresponding expansion of advertising, and the development of high-pressure salesmanship as a means of increasing the volume of sales, has had much to do with the wide dissemination of röntgen-ray apparatus not only in legitimate medical circles but also among the quacks and outlaws of the borderlands" (Desjardins, loc. cit.).

In conclusion

As noted earlier, relatively little has been written about the processes through which the modem system of medical innovation took shape. Noticeably lacking is any detailed analysis of technological change and the emergence of structured relations between clinicians and the emergent industry in this early period. Historians of medicine have devoted relatively little attention to technology, whilst those studying technological innovation have either lacked historical interest or have preferred to concentrate on sectors more obviously related to industrialisation. Such analysis would then have to move on to consider the impact of demobilisation of technical expertise after the Second World War, and the increasing tendency to identify high quality health care with technological sophistication. In the 1950s and 1960s innovation in health care was uninhibited by the concerns with cost and safety, or with ethics and rationing, which emerged later. It was from the 1970s onwards that governments sought to intervene more actively in this innovation process concerned, in particular though not exclusively, with cost (Blume forthcoming). Here a contradiction in public policy typically emerged, as governments ought on the one hand to stimulate innovation by firms supplying the medical sector, whilst on the other hand trying to limit the consequent pressures on their own health care budgets.

This paper also suggests a quite different form of analysis, of no less interest. Preliminary investigation shows significant differences between the kinds of research done with the two

133 Stuart Blume instruments discussed here. A good deal of the research using the röntgen apparatus was of a technical kind: addressed to the technology "as such". Most of the rest was clinical. With the ECG very little (published) research indeed was addressed to the technology, and very little was clinical (Allart 1996). Most published work in this period was physiological research. Apparently the significance of the new technologies for their users, what they found interesting about the devices, differed as between the proto-radiologists and the proto-cardiologists. Such differences, it seems, are still to be found. Consider the area of brain imaging, which today is of such great interest scientifically, medically and culturally. It is an area in which a variety of clinical and non-clinical disciplines are involved, including neuroscientists, neurologists and neurosurgeons, and radiologists. In future research I intend to investigate the distinctive interests which these disciplines have in new technology and which, as yet unanalysed, undoubtedly give rise to anomalies in the innovation process.

134 Structures of Innovation and Their Historic Roots: The Case of Medicine

Bibliography

Allart Β., Early electrocardiography: origins, development and establishment of the ECG, unpublished paper, Amsterdam/Maastricht, 1996.

Barron S.L., "The development of the electrocardiograph in Great Britain", British Medical Journal, 1,720, 1950.

Blume S., Insight and Industry: The Dynamics of Technological Change in Medicine, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA), 1992.

Blume S., "Medicine, technology and industry", in J. Pickstone and R. Cooter (eds.), Histoiy of Medicine in the Twentieth Century, Harwood Academic Publishers, forthcoming.

Brecher R. and Brecher E., The Rays: A History of Radiology, Williams and Williams, Baltimore, 1969.

Burch G.E. and De Pasquale Ν.P., A History of Electrocardiography, Year Book Medical Publishers, Chicago, 1964.

Burrows E.H., Pioneers and Early Years: A History of British Radiology, Colophon, Alderney (CI), 1986.

Carlson W.B., Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870-1900, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991.

Cartwright L., " 'Experiments of destruction': cinematic inscriptions of physiology", Representations, 40, 129, 1992.

Cattermole M.J.G. and Wolfe A.F., Horace Darwin's Shop: A History of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company 1878-1968, Adam Hilger, Bristol, 1987. de Chadarevian S., "Graphical recording method and discipline: self-recording instruments in nineteenth century physiology", Studies in Histoiy & Philosophy of Science, 24, 267, 1993.

Desjardins A.U., "The low status of radiology in America", Journal of the American Medical Association, 92, 1929.

Einthoven W., "The String Galvanometer and the Human Electro-cardiogram", Proc. K. Akademie Wet. Amsterdam, Sect. Sci., 6, 1903-1904.

Frank R.G., "The tell-tale heart: physiological instruments, graphic methods and clinical hopes 1854-1914", in W. Coleman and F Holmes (eds.), The Investigative Enterprise, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988, pp. 211s.

135 Stuart Blume

Glasser D., Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and the Early History of Röntgen Rays, Ch. Thomas, Springfield (IL), 1934.

Howell J., Technology in the Hospital: Transforming Patient Care in the Early Twentieth Centuiy, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1995.

Knight N., " 'The new light': X­rays and medical futurism", in Joseph J. Com (ed.), Imagining Tomorrow: History, Technology and the American Future, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA), 1986, pp. 10­34.

Lawrence Ch. (a), "Incommunicable knowledge: science, technology and the clinical art in Britain, 1850­1914", Journal of Contemporary History, 20, 503, 1985.

Lawrence Ch. (b), "Modems and ancients: the 'new cardiology' in Britain 1880­1930", in W. Bynum, C. Lawrence and Nutton (eds.), The Emergence of Modern Cardiology, Supplement n° 5 of Medical History, 1985.

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Reich L.S., 77îe Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876­1926, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985.

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136 3. The Development of National S&T Policies

Differentiation of Science and Politics: Science Policy in the 19th and 20th Century* Rudolf Stichweh

"Science Policy" as a concept and as an autonomous policy domain is mainly an invention of 20th­century society. In German language, you probably first find the word Wissenschafts­ politik in some speeches by Adolf von Harnack given in the first decade of this century. Furthermore, if you are looking at Germany it is easily to be seen that in the 19th century science policy and policy for higher education were nearly one and the same thing. 19th century science policy didn't create autonomous research organisations. Instead it was based on the reformed universities and that means on an organisational infrastructure being in many respects several centuries old. For Germany this implied that science policy was in its core the policy of deciding on academic appointments. This results from the German university decomposing itself into professorial chairs as its basic structural elements. Because of the autonomy of German professors and because of the insignificant financial budgets they received for teaching and research, this also meant that questions of structural change in universities could mainly be thematized on the occasion of academic appointments. Later in the 19th century, when in some academic disciplines ­ especially physics and physiology ­ there were the first bigger institute buildings demanding considerable financial contributions by the state, again the same structural arrangement can be observed: financial decisions of some weight being coupled to academic calls to renowned scientists and therefore being coupled to trust related to the achievements of a single person.

Such a science policy for which the appointment of professors is its main type of activity is somehow discontinuous. It depends on events ­ the death of a chair holder, his retirement due to health problems ­ which it can neither calculate nor influence. This is especially true in the 19th century, no regular retiring age having been institutionalised.

For understanding this pattern I propose to look at a classification by Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann suggests that in decision processes there are always four levels in identifying the premises of decisions: you may refer your decisions to persons, social roles, decision programmes or societal values. It can at once be seen that the just outlined 19th­century

■ A German version of this article has appeared in Rudolf Stichweh, Wissenschafts, Universitaet, Professionen, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1994.

139 Rudolf Stich weh science policy operates primarily on the first two levels: persons and social roles. At the same time these two levels are characterised by a rather low generality in the formation of social expectations. That means: science policy identifies science as a structure of social roles. It conceives new disciplines and new problems in terms of academic chairs which it either creates or redefines in calling a new chair holder or abolishes if no further need is perceived. Furthermore it is remarkable that this planning of the role structure of science is closely related to persons and their concrete talents. This fixation on persons and roles can only be understood if you refer it to the above-mentioned characteristics of 19th-century policy: the identity of science policy and policy for higher education, and the non-establishing of new organisations for science. Whereas decision programmes and societal values differentiate between the social systems of science and higher education, the same persons and roles may be operative in both systems. This is at least true so long as the role structure of university teaching is closely related to the disciplinary structure of modem science, so that the discipline functions as a unit of structure formation in both systems: science and higher education. This structural coupling of two systems by roles which are similarly defined in both systems and which are occupied by persons who are supposed to be able to communicate in both systems is maintained in German universities even today.

I think it is interesting to look at the so-called "System Althoff" in this perspective. This policy regime of late nineteenth-century Prussia, often being perceived by contemporaries as being scandalous, may be described by two characteristics: Althoff's policy did not question the operational primacy of appointments to professorial chairs. But he tried to combine concrete appointment decisions in a present situation with a long-term planning of future appointments (regarding the same person presently involved, and other persons too). Analysed in these terms, Althoff's should not be seen as the first science policy of the 20th policy but instead as the last version of 19th-century science policy. The corrupting effects of this regime, vividly described by Max Weber and others, may be precisely derived from overtaxing a traditional pattern of science policy and thereby disregarding the integrity of the persons involved.

* * *

These introductory remarks on 19th-century science policy may allow to identify the two main innovations in 20th-century science policy. First, there is no longer a preference for embedding all scientific structures into the traditional university system. Instead, the 20th- century establishes new organisational types for new scientific goal orientations. Among these new organisations are research organisations (e.g. the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft), there are also organisations which are specialised in implementing the programmatic deci• sions of science policy (e.g. the Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft). In terms of sociology of science the decisive question is, then: Which are the structural limitations of the social form "Organisation"? Why does a modem science policy not primarily rest on orga• nisations which are exclusively reserved for scientific research? I won't try to give an

140 Differentiation of Science and Politics: Science Policy in the 19th and 20th Century exhaustive answer here, but one important limitation of pure research organisations seems to be that science somehow profits from being embedded into structures which are interested in the use and application of scientific knowledge. This may be illustrated via analysing the interrelationship of science and higher education. Another instructive example is industrial research which might be institutionalised in the form that industrial enterprises delegate research tasks to external and specialised research organisations. That even in this case most research is done in the same business firm which afterwards makes use of the research results may be caused by an inextricable mixture of public and private components in any knowledge process. This mixture of public and private components of knowledge means a two-sided dependence. Public knowledge arises in a context of practices, experiences and traditions which are only difficult to transfer elsewhere and which can't be communicated in a simple way. The practical use of public knowledge on the other hand often depends on adapting this public knowledge to such a local context of knowledge, and this is a difficult task again. You may well observe this by studying the patent system. Many scientists and engineers don't believe in protecting innovations by patents. The reason is that the best protection given to an innovation is its embeddedness in the local context of its genesis. In structural features of this type may be sought the reason, by the way, for the failure of essays to organise science simply in a big specialised research organisation such as the academy of sciences of the former USSR.

The second fundamental change in the 20th century is that science policy changes its centre of gravity from persons and roles to programmes and societal values. That does not mean, naturally, that persons and roles are no longer relevant as reference points of science policy. Even today academic chairs are created by foundations who want to place a specific individual with the intention of stimulating scientific and curricular innovation. A fascinating illustra• tion of the continuity of 19th-century patterns is the so-called Harnack-principle of the Max-Planck-Society. This means that new Max Planck-Institutes are only established if an extraordinary scientific personality proves to be available. At least the Max-Planck-Society maintains that this is its modus operandi. Charismatic personal capabilities which have to be compatible with collegiality today still function here as the final justification for establishing a new organisation.

Interventions of this type, being related to persons and roles in the first instance, are no longer central for 20th-century science policy. Instead there is a discourse on scientific pro• grammes and societal values, and only this discourse is normally meant when you are speak• ing of science policy today. The two structural changes just mentioned - formation of new organisational types, and programmes and values as preferred levels of control - are accom• panied by a third far-reaching change: This is the differentiation of policies for science and for higher education which now can be politically realised without endangering the structural coupling of science and higher education in the university system. This structural coupling

141 Rudolf Stich weh can be continued because it is still stabilised by persons and roles as structural elements common to both system types.

Ϋ ·ν ·!*

How is it possible to control science by programmes of sciences policy? As you can't make use of power - i.e. the control type specific to political systems - politics is referred to the dependence of science on financial resources as an opportunity for political influence. This presupposes that financial resources are given to science for specifically scientific purposes. This is a surprisingly late development. In Germany, even in the 1920s it is difficult to identify in the budgets of university institutes resources which are specifically meant for the purposes of scientific research. It is nearly the same in the United States. Funds for doing a specific piece of scientific research can first be observed in the period between the two wars. This money comes from private foundations and industry, and that means that from the point of view of the university scientific research for the first time functions as a chance of receiving additional money and no longer as a burden straining the university budget. The German and the American cases allow to see how late this development is to be observed.

At the same time there already existed some rather big organisations for doing scientific research - as for example the "Physical-technical Imperial Institute" (PTR), established 1887, and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society (1912). But this willingness to create new research organi­ sations is either due to an administrative demand for knowledge (technical expertise as a precondition for administrative decisionmaking) or it is motivated by an interest in applied scientific knowledge in economy and industry. That means that there is no really new pattern of political control of science. Instead we may speak of separating and intensifying certain categories of applied research in new organisations which consider the basic research they are doing as a kind of overhead cost. Even the Max-Planck-Society, successor of the Kaiser- Wilhelm-Society, succeeded only in the fifties and sixties in really becoming an organisation with a primacy in basic research. Therefore I would like to suggest that the beginnings of modem science policy do not manifest themselves in these rather visible organisations but in some initiatives looking much more unassuming.

An important starting point are the central depots for privately donated funds. Because of the diversity of donors they offer the advantage that the multiplicity of motives for giving money does not generate a natural self-interest of the central financial depot. Therefore this type of organisation is somehow open for external determination by an innovative science policy. As well the metropolitan university foundations in early 20th-century Germany (e.g. Frankfurt, Cologne) as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society result from such accumulated funds. For the structural change in which I am interested here, one plausible starting point is the so-called Jubiläums-stiftung der deutschen Industrie ("Jubilee foundation of German industry") distributing from 1883 a sum of not more than 1,5 million marks. This was collected by the

142 Differentiation of Science and Politics: Science Policy in the 19th and 20th Century

"Association of German Engineers" (VDI) in industrial circles on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the technical university of Berlin. This money was earmarked for research projects at the technical universities. You had to write a proposal and a committee of experts decided on the selection of applicants. This technique of partitioning the money and giving smaller sums on the basis of expert opinion to individual applicants became a rule in German industrial foundations of the next two decades.

The Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft was after 1918 the first institution in which this technique was transferred to the state - and this was an unintended transfer. The Notgemeinschaft was intended to be a collecting point for private funds which hoped to substitute for some resources which the German states, in the crisis after 1918, were no longer able to give to science. Only when these private funds proved to be insufficient the German imperial government intervened. This intervention was to some extent motivated by the interest of the imperial government to extend its powers in cultural matters, constitutionally restricted to the federal states. At the same time the imperial government had to trade in established struc• tures of the Notgemeinschaft, especially the distribution of funds by expert committees, although the money was given by the state. That the imperial government accepted this may be explained by constitutional problems. As the imperial government had no constitutional competence for cultural matters it might be thought legitimate to give some money, but otherwise might be wise to refrain from participating in its distribution. Therewith a new pattern of interaction of science and politics could in principle be perceived: a partition of available resources in small sums; expert committees who establish a control level of self- government of science; and a structure of programmatic preferences which describes priorities among classes of scientific problems. This last control level defines science policy in a strict sense of this term. The dismay of political agents confronted with this unexpected development was aptly formulated by the Prussian orientalist and minister of cultural affairs Carl Heinrich Becker in 1929, when it was already too late to reverse the trend: "In the place of a competent and neutral administrative body the available financial resources are distributed by the organisations of the interested scientific circles themselves. If you take into account that these resources originate from the imperial budget it can't be tolerated in the long run that these funds which are decisive for German research are given to an organisation which in the last resort is a private one".

This dismay of a politician and administrator who in 1929 still hoped to be able to reverse the trend seems to be somehow unjustified from a present point of view. This structural change in science policy, with programmes of research which define frames for decisions but do not prejudice concrete decisions, has fundamentally altered the social system of science. To explain this I would like to point to two radical changes in the history of modem science. Both of them imply a change into elementary acts in the production of scientific knowledge. "Elementary" here means a decomposition of the production of knowledge in smaller,

143 Rudolf Stichweh delimited particles. The first of these changes happens in the decades around 1800 and it introduces the journal article (and somehow related forms of scientific publication) as the standard form of any scientific argumentation which intends to influence global processes of communication in science. There are far-reaching implications including standardising patterns of scientific argumentation, a more precise delimitation of the expectations regarding scientific proof, an indication of relevant cognitive networks via citation et al. It is remarkable that the introduction of structures of research finance based on politically institutionalised decision programmes introduces a second and somehow analogous structural change into science: this time it is a change in the way scientific work is decomposed into elementary units. This new form is the scientific project. Projects imply a partition of scientific work processes which is somehow analogous to the possibilities of partitioning money. Projects are supposed to be defined by a precise problem statement, they are tem• porally limited and that means they have a definite ending and after having been finished they can be evaluated in terms of success. At the beginning of modem science around 1800 you may observe an exclusion of problems which can't be dealt with in terms of theory or method. In a comparable way the genesis of projects means that some problems are disprivileged when they can't be decomposed into the elementary unit of the scientific project. Projects, then, define the way in which it is possible to coordinate programmes of science policy with the way scientific research is structured as a way of doing scientific work. That means that projects open the system of science to a new form of external control. How extensive the influence of projects on structures of science may be can be observed in the case of American universities where tenure decisions are related to the ability of young scientists to get financial resources for their projects. In the last resort this means delegating tenure decisions to external agents. Edward Hackett cites a still more extreme example: a biomedical department of an elite university which explicitly forbids its postdocs to work with professors who have no research grants. The guiding presupposition here seems to be that only those scientists who are able to get research money can be responsible educators. In a more general perspective it may be said that this structural change to a type of science based on project offers considerable chances of gaining legitimacy to science. This is because science subjects itself to an evaluation based on standards, which are not exclusively scientific standards but which are also related via programmes of science policy to external interests.

This opening of the system of science is not simply accidental and is therefore not incom• patible with the autonomy of science. On the level of its concrete research programmes - in contradistinction to the more basic code level which fixes true/false as the basic com• municative distinction of science - science could always be determined by external influ• ences. Whereas modern science enormously restricts the classes of problems which are conceivable as scientific problems, the choice among alternative scientific problems is not necessarily a scientific choice. Alternative scientific problems are often incommensurable in relation to one another. That means that the determination of problem choice by programmes

144 Differentiation of Science and Politics: Science Policy in the 19th and 20th Century of science policy only systématises a dependence which always existed as external influence on science and which always meant an indissoluble structural coupling of science with other functional contexts.

These reflections on the institutionalisation of the research grant and the genesis of the project as the elementary unit of scientific research, as two complementary aspects of the structural coupling of politics and science in the 20th century, describe only one facet of the 20th-century situation. But even on this basis a complex constellation is already to be seen. I will demonstrate this by pointing to four levels of political control:

1. There are societal values which are somehow transferred to the political system: e.g. the societal value "health" as a relevant policy issue. And these transfers inform the pre• ferences for programmes of science policy.

2. There is the control level of programmes and the choice among problems - e.g. a pro• gramme on cancer research as operationalisation of the valuation of health and as a political decision which, by the way, can't be taken without scientific advice. That means that science is always involved as an advisor in the way it is controlled by political decision processes.

3. There are the mechanisms of self-control or self-steering of science - e.g. panels of experts - who are responsible for the interpretation of programmes, i.e. for the allocation of grants to projects.

4. There is scientific research, being decomposed into projects, and emerging structural features of research which institutionalise a flexible opportunism in defining projects in terms of relevance offered by science policy.

These four levels create at the same time a hierarchy of decision levels which effect a limitation of risk by distributing risks among these four levels. Even if a "War on Cancer" declared by the Nixon government should not be won, in time nothing does exclude the possibility that in interpreting the programmes there are successful scientific specifications which make a difference, in the health system as in the system of basic research. There is only one case in which this hierarchy of decision levels is practically eliminated. These are the so-called megaprojects. They institutionalise a kind of shortcut by amalgamating societal valuation and the research process in one big project. The megaproject describes itself - even if always consisting in an innumerable number of single steps - as one indivisible unity which can only be accepted or rejected as such. These projects immediately incorporate a relevant societal value - e.g. the landing on the moon-curiosity as a basic human motive, or the "Human Genome" project - the secret of life or even the grail. The possibility of megaprojects rests on

145 Rudolf Stich weh a remarkable variant of the structural coupling of politics and science. In terms of science, the megaproject is a kind of coup of one field against many other fields, a coup disguised by a rhetoric of supplementary money. In terms of politics, the megaproject may create an unusual alliance of diverse interests because it seems to promise an advantage to the regions and perhaps even nations participating in it. In contradistinction to normal science this time there is "real money" involved, and this may motivate strange alliances of heterogeneous interests. * * * In concluding, I will only mention one aspect being important for the differentiation of science and politics. This refers to the centralisation vs. decentralisation of the structures of political decision making. You may best observe this in the case of the United States where since the thirties the innovations and the dilemmas of science policy can be observed with a special acuity.

In a certain sense a science policy of the Congress and of the federal government exists in the US only since the experience of the second World War. The American war effort also implied an enormous expansion of research and development. Paul Forman calculated for the years from 1938 to 1945 a growth in military R&D by a factor of fifty. This military research and development was coordinated in World War II by the OSRD directed by Vannevar Bush. It was Vannevar Bush, again, who with his memoir "Science - The endless frontier" demarcated in 1945 the beginnings of post-World War II science policy. Perhaps the most important proposal was the idea to establish a "National Science Foundation". At first the NSF was conceived somehow analogous to OSRD as a coordinating institution exercising some kind of civil control of the structures of research funding dominated by military institutions. That also means that the NSF was sometimes supposed to act as a substitute for the non-existent Science Department in the American government. When the NSF finally was established six years later, in 1951, it was a different institution. The obvious reason is that there was no longer anyone interested in a central coordinating and steering institution. For the plurality of federal agencies giving money to research, there was no plausible motive to transfer resources to the NSF. And from the perspective of scientists, there was the fear that the existence of one central institution would mean a shrinkage of the available financial resources. Therefore, when NSF was created, the structural effect was a further diversification in the institutional machinery of research finance. NSF became a comparatively small institution with a budget of two billion dollars in comparison to a total federal R&D budget of 68 billion dollars (figures from 1990). Today there are more than thirty federal agencies and departments who are somehow involved in financing research projects. There is a parallel track of agencies for coordinative and consultative purposes, such as the Office of Technology Assessment, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and others. But even they do not effect a centralisation of policies in deci• sion processes. Instead they diversify expertise in matters of science policy, thereby expanding

146 Differentiation of Science and Politics: Science Policy in the 19th and 20th Century

for interested agencies the space of political options. This administrative differentiation of science policy is finally compounded by analogous structures in the two houses of Congress. Nearly half of the more than 300 committees and subcommittees of Congress is in some respect involved with matters of science policy.

What results from this description for the analysis of the interrelation of science and policy in modern states? It seems to be the case for both sides of this interrelation that you can't describe them by definite preference structures. Instead the most remarkable structural fact is internal differentiation. In the USA there are on the one side 3400 institutions of higher education and additionally a multiplicity of research organisations; on the other there is a complex of federal institutions defining values and creating policy programmes which is characterised by the mutual independence of institutions. Besides this reciprocity of independence, there seems to be another important feature which may be called redundancy. For any kind of scientific problem and the possibilities of its application-oriented exploration, there always seems to be a plurality of institutional addresses being engaged. This may be called a useless doubling of capacities, but in an evolutionary perspective you may point out the often mentioned advantages of redundancy. Any scientific innovation whatsoever may always be explored - either in its scientific consequences or in the possibilities of its practical application - from a plurality of perspectives which differ from one another only by a small amount. Perhaps this allows a more complete survey of an intellectual space to be explored in its scientific as well as in its technical aspects.

147

The Emergence of French Research Policy: Chance or Necessity?* François Jacq

A meeting held a few years ago about research policy in the frame of the French major research organism, the CNRS, exemplifies very well the difficulties encountered when dealing with research policy. A chairman indicated that, according to him, research policy had always existed: especially each time a scientist was looking for some financial resources. Going a bit further, some historians displayed the picture of an heroic fight in order to promote research policy, identified with progress, against many forms of conservatism, taking as example the "long march" to the creation of the CNRS. Finally an American historian raised severe doubts, suspecting that those discourses about research policy had little to do with real practices. He ironically noted that Jean Perrin, one of the creators of the CNRS, "was indeed a bizarre kind of Mao", hence referring to the "long march".

This little confrontation explains why research policy might appear as a troublesome object for the historian. The very notion has become so evident for us that no doubt is raised about its nature. I intend to outline a different view of research policy, not so much as an institutional accomplishment, but as a collective object which was used, historically, during the fifties and sixties, to mobilise energies around science, and reversely strongly influenced reflections on science. I will proceed in three steps. First, I sketch some aspects of the classical historio• graphy and sociology about the history of French politique scientifique. In a second part, I will explore some often neglected features of research policy's practices in order to conclude with a brief account of the historical space which can be assigned to research policy.

History and sociology about research policy: a dilemma

"Chance or necessity" might appear as a rather provocative subtitle for this paper. How could be research policy be implemented by chance, how could it be deemed necessary. As a matter of fact, it refers to the vast amount of literature on the subject which divides approximately into two large groups. On the one hand, most historical studies consist of heroic narratives stressing the progressive awareness of the necessity of science policy, hence the firsts term:

' An extended version of this paper was published as "The Emergence of French Research Policy: Methodological and Historiographical Problems", History and Technology, vol. 12, 1995, pp. 285-308.

149 François Jacq necessity. On the other hand, analysts of public policies, especially those concerned with the French case, privilege a different approach, focusing on the description of the conflicts around the definition of policies. In particular, in the follow-on of Crozier's work, there have been numerous studies around the "bureaucratic phenomenon".' However, this relative flexibility is all but real. Public policies are just pretext, illusions which veiled the real socio-political purposes of the actors. Now, the two sides of the alternative appear. With the story told in the heroic mood, we are confronted with an event without history. Scientific policy as such constitutes the main category of the narrative, its recognition is the event whose history is almost negligible, or rather each step described is a celebration of the overall incarnation. On the other hand, the sociological tradition provides us with an history without event. Scientific policy has no other interest than to display the story of the social conflicts and struggles for power. It is a pure pretext, a veil used by the actors to legitimate their deep interests.

Furthermore, this approach presupposes a rigid divide between two fields of work. As one student of public policy has put it: "the constitution of an object of scientific policy pre• supposes the construction of the scientific object and of the political one. One will only speak here of the second one, leaving to the historians and sociologists of science the analysis of the constitution of the scientific field".2 Work is clearly divided: there is of course some aspects left to the internal dynamic of the scientific field but, probably most importantly, one has to understand the political game which sustained the use of public policies such as the scientific one. Chance or necessity, I will try to suggest that this alternative may be misleading. Between those two determinations, there is space for a rather different construction of scientific policy, a construction which would account at the same time for the diverging logics, sustained by specific purposes. Before developing this view, let me begin with a short "heroic description".

A general theme unifies all narratives: the constant fight of a minority for the politique scientifique against conservatism and inability to understand the value of science. French con• text is often described in terms of backwardness. From this perspective, an attempt such as Jean Perrin's forceful advocacy of a politique de la science during the thirties is considered as a reaction against decline.3 J. Perrin had to fight against an indifferent political class, the

1 See M. Crozier, Le phénomène bureaucratique, Seuil, Paris, 1963; one should also see a good summary of the work of this group in M. Crozier, E. Friedberg, C. Gremion, P. Gremion, J.C. Thoening, J.P. Worms, Où va l'administration française, Editions d'organisation, Paris, 1974. 2 L. Rouban, "L'évaluation des politiques scientifiques et l'explication politique: les contraintes de l'incertitude", in B. Crousse, J.L. Quermonne, L. Rouban, Science politique et politique de la science, Economica, Paris, 1986, pp. 69-91, quote p. 88. 3 For Pasteur's denunciation of France's weaknesses, see L. Pasteur, Pour l'avenir de la France, Paris, 1947, which comprised its tract of 1871, "Pourquoi la France n'a pas trouvé d'hommes supérieurs au moment du péril". On the campaign of J. Perrin, one can see H.W. Paul, From Knowledge to Power. The Rise of the Science Empire in France, 1860-1939, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985; but also J.F. Picard, La république des savants, Flammarion, Paris, 1990.

150 The Emergence of French Research Policy: Chance or Necessity? conservative majority of "professors", the inertia of most industrialists.4 Despite those oppositions, the heroic story mentions that some steps, which prefigured the forecoming French research policy, were nevertheless taken before the second world war. One evokes the Caisse des Recherches Scientifiques (CRS, Scientific Research Office), created around 1901 by the Senator Jean Audiffred. However, although the projects of the CRS to develop science were sound, it failed, being unable to subsidise science at large.5

As mentioned, Jean Perrin argued for a politique de la science which might allow French science to develop anew. He partially succeeded in creating in 1933, the High Council for Scientific Research. The council was intended to promote science and distribute grants, what was made with very small resources. In short, this period displays the picture of a small group of scientists aware of the weaknesses of the French research system. The aims of the politique de la science are seen as obvious, only its application was troublesome.6

The defeat of 1940 made the impression of an earthquake. The success of the. United States illustrated the terrific impact of science and technology on war but also on industrial and eco• nomic matters. This post-war period is however depicted as an ambiguous one. A growing num• ber of scientists was fully aware of the necessity of a strong effort in favour of science. But it didn't amount to a "real" research policy. Financial and human resources were still scarce. The weakness of the political class under the Fourth Republic prevented any strong political com• mitment, and the rivalry between state services impeded any coordinated push for science. The second plan (1952-1957) had a commission in charge of research, headed by H. Laugier, which submitted an alarmist report in November 1954. This coincided with the coming into office of the Mendès-France government in June 1954. During its brief seven months of existence, the Mendès-France government strove to bring about major reforms, and to increase funding and number of researchers. To sum up the period, one generally notes that it is rich in promise; some of the features of the state's research policy were now bom, but the nascent French policy was immediately caught in the web of the old-French demons of "grandeur" and "decline".

The major turning point - the historiography is almost unanimous on this point, although with divergent appreciations of the result - came with the Fifth Republic and the innovations

4 For this explanation see R. Gilpin, La science et l'Etat en France, Gallimard, Paris, 1970, chapter IV; and also S. Hoffmann et al, In Search of France, Cambridge (MA), 1963. 5 We may quote R. Gilpin, op. cit., p. 130, on this subject (my translation), "the Caisse was the first serious attempt to encourage fundamental research... although its yield was not very high, its creation announced a great change...". 6 Part of this account is fully justified. D. Pestre, Physique et physiciens en France, 1918-1940, Editions des archives contemporaines, Paris, 1984, analysed the particularities of the French context in particular concerning the neglect of some aspects of theoretical physics, or the under-development of university laboratories. However this does not imply a uniform view of scientific purposes and achievements during the period, and research policy was no absolute and evident remedy.

151 François Jacq introduced by the Gaullist government. This time research policy crystallised around important decisions. With the strong political commitment of the Gaullist government, France had eventually made the necessary effort to establish a real politique scientifique. It crowned the edifice patiently built since the beginning of the century. After a long period of neglect and hesitation, science was now politically driven through administrative and political mecha­ nisms. But the Gaullist drive did not last very long. Research policy was soon neglected. Thus, the sixties, despite impressive achievements, ended with a somewhat mixed feeling of regress. The explanation of this disappointment appears quite straightforward: France did indeed need a strong research and technology policy, but it was incorrectly implemented. Instead of providing the resources for an autonomous development, the state tried to control every initiative. Although scientists fought hard in favour of the politique scientifique, they were partially passive actors, as were the industrialists.

Thus the well­known, standard account of the emergence of research policy in France. It is right on some points, yet nevertheless it neglects some crucial aspects and adopts a point of view which necessarily ignores the dynamic of the elaboration of research and technology policy.

Research policy: genealogy, practices and heterogeneity

To bring some nuances to this view, I will focus on some features distorted by those accounts. Let me first comment on the question of genealogy. It is a temptation difficult to resist searching after the origins of research policy. For instance, the Caisse des Recherches Scientifiques (CRS), created in 1901, looks like an ancestor of the politique de la science. Was it in fact such a grand­mother? Probably not. The attempt was mainly concerned with biological science and medicine. Rather than denoting a failed opportunity, it indicated a conception of science linked to welfare preoccupations in the field of health and hygiene. It was indeed typical of nineteenth century concerns.

As far as Jean Perrin's attempt is concerned, it arose from quite different origins. Inspired by the idea οι planification, whose model was to be found in the USSR, the project stressed the necessity of a state central service to control and judge the advancement of science.7 Therefore, those projects can not be seen as convergent towards research policy. They exhibit strong differences. The thrust of my argument is to show how the teleological description induces some distortions. The narrative is conceived as an heroic one, historical actors are almost puppets, no attention is paid to their real practices and motivations. They

7 See the work in progress of T. Shinn on the laboratories at Bellevue, séminaire La Villette­Cité des sciences, novembre 1993. For some indications on the specificity of the inventions policy, Y. Roussel, "L'histoire d'une politique des inventions", Cahiers pour l'histoire du CNRS, 3, 1989.

152 The Emergence of French Research Policy: Chance or Necessity?

seem to be set acting through an hidden and powerful agenda, in this case the ominous need of research policy; this concept is the real actor of the play, the driving force of historical evolution.

To the contrary, the task of research policy analysis should be to explore how conflicting logics about what is the politique de la science progressively shaped an arena of debates. Shortly, there is a crucial incertitude about the nature of the object "research policy" and genealogy should account for that.8 Another difficulty lies in the lack of articulation between material practices (science), theoretical conceptions and views on policy. I want to underline that many narratives restrict themselves to the realm of institutions and general reforms. For instance, in the description of the fifties in France, a greater space should be given to the evolution of the practices and conceptions of scientists. The war and the development of new scientific areas have brought profound changes in the nature of scientific objects. A stress on instruments and production of new phenomena pervades the scientific community, physicists and chemists being at the first rank.9 Phenomenology was now the dominant feature of physical investigations. This turn had many consequences. Some scientists realised that their former conception of the laboratory was no more adapted to those new constraints. They had to mobilise more students, to train them in a different manner, to establish new research groups to be able to exploit results.

Let us give two examples of these modifications in the fifties. First, the laboratory of Louis Néel in Grenoble.10 Focused on magnetism, it was conceived by Néel as a vast laboratory breaking with the tradition of the old university laboratories. To build his laboratory, Néel used several resources: funds from the CNRS and from the University, collaboration with the CEA to create a new Nuclear Research Centre, the CEN-Grenoble." Since 1955, Néel was also president of the CNRS section devoted to electronics and magnetism. In the frame of the CNRS, each section was in charge of the allotment of equipment supplies. Néel had a powerful instrument to develop some research areas, to privilege the growth of some

8 The object should be seen as an emerging one, not as already constructed. The different actors and options, if one wants to take historical processes seriously, should perform the object, what does not deny it a partial autonomy. ' On those questions, see the introduction of D. Pestre which provides a useful and illuminating com• parison between French and American physics: The practice of physics and the cultural, institutional and political environment, an international comparison built from the French case. Third lecture, Summer school, Berkeley, July 1992. 10 See D. Pestre, "Louis Néel, le magnétisme et Grenoble. Récit de la création d'un empire physicien dans la province française, 1940-1965", Cahiers pour l'histoire du CNRS, 8, 1990. 11 On this very special venture see F. Jacq, Un regard sur la science et l'industrie, Le cas du LETI, EHESS-CSI, Paris, 1991.

153 François Jacq laboratories, to encourage recruitment, hence a real tool of "research policy" on a small scale.12 Second, the case of Yves Rocard, director of the Laboratory of the Ecole Normale Supérieure is also revealing. Rocard diversified greatly the activities of his laboratory, hosting every new promising attempts (radioastronomy, solid state physics, etc.). He had several contacts with industry, militaries and the CEA. A close association emerged between the group interested in semi-conductor and one of the major French electronics company, the CSF.13 Rocard experimented new forms of science's organisation.14 He diverged from Néel with his commitment to practical applications.

Although each of these stories reveals different features, they all testify for a new scientific practice characterised by an entrepreneurial model. Through their daily practices, at their own level, those groups were experimenting forms of scientific development. They were also driven by the idea of promoting French science, although with no direct policy interests. Hence, the story of research policy can not be just one of implementing general directives at the macro-level. One has to understand how this could develop, on what grounds, with what kind of support, what purposes. Instead of considering a policy conceived to develop science, perhaps it could be useful to ask how some scientific developments required and forged spe• cific policies.

This relates to another important issue, that of heterogeneity and discontinuity in research policy. Indubitably, research policy was a fashionable term in the fifties and sixties in France; many scientists, but even militaries or industrialists used it. But, if everyone claimed the term, it was with very divergent and conflicting logics. Therefore the description of the "birth of a national policy for science" must deal with this diversity, this heterogeneity, not neglect it. I will give more details on those competing logics in my attempt of periodization. Let me just very briefly mention some. The logic of scientific "entrepreneurs" such as Rocard or Néel has already been touched upon. It was no matter of theorising but of adaptation through specific channels to the new practices of physics. Longchambon and its Conseil illustrated a more "dirigisi" logic of science and its regulation. Moreover, the intent was to control science, not to practice it. This logic encountered another parallel developing option, which thought of the state's role as encouraging research through punctual actions designed to correct evident gaps. This could not take the form of a Plan approach, but had to be done through a small structure with no direct authority on the various research organisms. It is no hazard if the man chosen to head the DGRST, Pierre Piganiol, former scientific adviser of a private firm, Saint Gobain,

12 See the Néel Archives, W6888, boîte 41 à 50, which allows to trace Néel's activities in this domain. 13 On Rocard's laboratory one should look at D. Pestre, "La création d'un nouvel univers physicien, Yves Rocard et le laboratoire de physique de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, 1938-1960", to be published in the book for the bicentenary of the ENS.

14 One could think in particular of the beginnings of radioastronomy or of the linear accelerator of Orsay.

154 7Vîe Emergence of French Research Policy: Chance or Necessity?

had defined, during the debates of the CSRSPT, the mission of state policy as "to study the rules of the scientific game, the most beautiful role of a liberal state in order to influence them", thus opposing the notion of "scientific mobilisation".15

One could add other alternative logics; an industrially-driven one as exemplified by Maurice Ponte, leader of one of the major French electronics company, the CSF '6, also argued for the development of a general policy, but this time it was more dedicated to practical industrial development. Another position is well-exemplified by the attitude of the head of the CEA (1951-8), Pierre Guillaumat. He inclined towards a state industrialist logic. Research and technology policy had not to be the creature of universities or of "Plan men" like Long• chambon. It had to be built around major programmes such as atom or space.17 Therefore one should observe that research policy was not during the fifties and beginning of the sixties an homogeneous reality.

A major characteristic of research policy in France, in the sixties this time, appears to be its politically-driven character. Many authors note that French research and technology suffered from a real lack of interest in managerial and technical practices.18 State's civil servants and politicians imposed their view to scientists and industrialists. The best case would be the Plan Calcul for the computer industry. Unfortunately, one has once again to nuance this view.

Far from being transparent, industrial actors and technical experts played a dominant part. Let us begin with the case of the company CSF, and its leader Maurice Ponte. Since 1955, the company launched an impressive campaign in favour of a scientific and technical programme for electronics around transistor as a key element, but linked with many other components. CSF began to transform electronics in a major stake for national science, economy and

15 Conseil Supérieur de la Recherche Scientifique et du Progrès Technique, séance du 18 janvier 1955, "Compte rendu", p. 13, Archives Louis Néel, W6888, boîte 38. 16 Compagnie Générale de Télégraphie sans Fil which merged with the Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston in 1968. 17 One could probably nuance this view but it corresponds to a pregnant trend of some scientifico- administrative endeavours of post-war France. Often termed "Colbertism", this approach should be explored in greater details, it goes indeed further than a simple drive to power (correlated with inefficiency) of some corporatism as some try to describe it. See E. Cohen, Le Colbertisme "high tech ". Economie de Telecom et du Grand Projet, Hachette, Paris, 1992. 18 See for instance J. Jublin and J.-M. Quatrepoint, French Ordinateurs, Moreau, Paris, 1976; E. Cohen et M. Bauer, Les grandes manoeuvres industrielles, Belfond, Paris, 1985. The theme of state intervention in industry was also studied by J. Zysman, Political Strategies for Industrial Order, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1977; and R.F. Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France: Revolution and Economic Management in the Twentieth Century, CUP, Cambridge, 1981. See also P. Mounier-Kuhn, "French Computer Manufacturers and the Component Industry, 1952-1972", History and Technology, vol. 11, 1994, pp. 195-216.

155 François Jacq independence, therefore an object of research and technology policy. In 1960, Ponte was called to the head of the CCRST, the Gaullist council. He was a forceful advocate of a special action in favour of electronics in the frame of the concerted actions of the DGRST This enterprise succeeded in September 1961 when a programme for fifteen millions of francs was approved." Hence, the creation of the concerted action on electronics was largely industrially-driven.

The case of computers is even more revealing. One among the proponents of the development of computers was once again, as soon as 1961,20 the CSF CSF's project was grounded on the idea to develop electronic components. 1962 and 1963 were years of intense negotiations when M. Ponte and A. Danzin, for the CSF, constantly pressed the necessity of a specific plan for computers and components. A first plan called Hexagone, because it had six different objectives, was elaborated at the end of 1963. But, one has to stress that that initiative was on the industrial side even if different rhetoric and projects partly merged.21 An expert, such as Bernard Delapalme, then deputy director of the Grenoble CEA's research establishment, in charge of electronics at Grenoble, had research groups working under his guidance on transistors and computers memories as soon as I960.22 He was the author of the 1963 Report on electronic computers stressing the importance of the field, but still in the perspective of the development of electronics.23

Hence, the Plan Calcul had strong advocates among experts, scientists and industrialists. One could argue that, without those incentives, the government would probably not have paid so much attention to computers. I have no space to go deeper in the case of the Plan Calcul, but I want to note that its elaboration contradicts the common legend of a Plan launched due to purely nationalist motivations, and the image of a politically and adminis• tratively-driven initiative.

19 On all these aspects, see F Jacq, Bâtir une électronique française: politique scientifique et image de l'életronique, autour de la CSF, 1945-1965, CSI, Paris, 1994. There is in particular a note of M. Ponte to his second A. Danzin, in September 1961, where he explicitly states that A. Danzin and his collaborators should elaborate a complete research programme for an amount of fifteen millions of franc because he had obtained the approval of a fifteenmillion s francs programme. 20 Let us remind that the Plan Calcul officially began in 1966-7. 21 On the Plan Hexagone and those negotiations, the best sources are the archives of the DGRST, Archives Nationales, Versement 770321; and the papers of A. Danzin for the years 1962-1965. See also G. Ramunni, "Entre recherche fondamentale et développement industriel, l'action de la DGRST en faveur des calculateurs électroniques, 1959-1966", Actes du Ile colloque sur l'histoire de l'infor• matique, 337-366, who focuses exclusively on the administrative side, the DGRST's action through the computers committee (action concertée calcul électronique). 22 See F. Jacq, "Electronique et informatique un mariage difficile?, Les recherches sur les mémoires au Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Grenoble, 1955-1975", Actes du lile colloque sur l'histoire de l'informatique, INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, 1993.

21 "Note confidentielle sur les calculateurs électroniques", COPER Paris, 1963.

156 77ÎÉ· Emergence of French Research Policy: Chance or Necessity?

What historical place for research policy?

I finally turn to a brief sketch of the nature and evolution of the research and technology policy. I will try to suggest how research policy was progressively constituted in a major category for all the actors involved, however with successive different overtones. It will be important to remind that research or scientific policy as such has been a major stake only for a limited period of time. During these years, numerous new forms of scientific organisation or evaluation have been produced as a consequence of the intertwining of several local trajectories confronted around this new object: research policy. Far from being an eternal category, it played a very specific role during the fifties and sixties inducing new attitudes about the relation between science and society.

I have already stressed the impact of the war's achievements on the perception of science by scientists. Some scientists, mainly physicists, realised the huge difference between their practices and the American ones. They tried to create new laboratories on a much larger scale to promote new research subjects. However, one should stress three major aspects of the post• war French context. First of all, the main task, which mobilised all energies, was reconstruc• tion; science was not, as such, at the heart of this endeavour. More immediate needs had to be fulfilled. This is best exemplified by the second important trend of the period: the fascination for the Plan. The Plan was explicitly a new way of conceiving policies. However the post-war Plan made no reference to science, but largely monopolised the definition of public policies. Last general feature: the perception of the United States as the most successful country as regards economy, defence and of course science.

Three factors probably triggered a mutation around 1951. First, the evolution of the interna• tional situation, the beginning of the competition for the atom and the bomb, and the cold war; second, the Plan Monnet had begun to palliate immediate needs and time was ripe to consider scientific and technical issues as source of economic growth; finally, some scien• tists felt the need for an increase in their means of action. Therefore, the idea of research pol• icy was a projection of different interests: scientific, industrial, political ones. There is no real continuity with the pre-war period and the concept constitutes a form of rationalisation of existing practices (for instance the creation of large institutes dedicated to specific fields). Furthermore, it appears at the same time as a tool for further expansion of the scientific activities but also as a conceptualisation of the role of science in society.

Although it was punctuated by some major events, one can probably consider the period 1952-1962 as a coherent one: debates about research policy began to expand and several logics confronted. I should first insist on the important qualitative and quantitative changes in material practices of scientists, especially physicists. The entrepreneur's logic of men like Néel or Rocard gave a strong impulse to a definite turn in the practice of science.

157 François Jacq

Another important development took place around the Plan. The fascination for planification revived in science. The stress was not so much on politique scientifique than on planification of science. This was of course reinforced by the influence of the old generation of scientists, men such as Henri Laugier or Henri Longchambon. At the same time, active scientists, as Néel. Sadron, mainly advocated increase of funds and number of students, without too strong theoretical commitment. But they interacted strongly with the group around Longchambon.

M. Ponte, then head of the French electronics company CSF, represented another group. It was no hazard that Ponte was interested in promoting scientific development. Left aside specific interests, M. Ponte was convinced of the essential impact of technological developments on industry and economy. He tried to promote a scientifico-industrial logic: France should pay more attention to the scientifically-driven industries and to the technical competencies.

I already mentioned the CEA's position. It combined a benign neglect for most scientific aspects with a strong concern about themes where state's intervention was judged essential. Hence policy, if there was to be one, had to be equated with those specific interventions. The purpose was to do science, not to organise what others would do.

Hence, around 1953-4, in France, many groups were interested in scientific development. However, none of these groups took part in a coherent programme, they rather opposed, or at best elaborated occasional alliances. The multiplication of interventions on the theme of science favoured the emergence of a public debate. A large majority agreed that something had to be done for science, even if for different motives, and this was the initial requirement to speak about a research policy. But, the nature of the object was still obscure or to be defined. During this period, a large part of the common "repertoire" of research policy options was progressively constituted, and at the same time this very notion gained a wider credence.

The subsequent developments were partly a result of those conflicts. From an historical perspective, the period saw probably the zenith of the debates around research policy when it incarnated a really active historical object, that is to say a troublesome category used by many actors, orienting debates, focusing attention, displaying confrontations between opposed conceptions, reflecting changes in material practices.24

The developments of the fifties and sixties abundantly show the eminent role of the idea of research policy. Indeed, the concept contributed to organise reflections around science and opened a new field of debate and, in this sense, produced new concepts, new ways of acting,

24 In this sense, it was not far, according to us, to the notion of "collective statement" as studied by A. Boureau, "L'adage Vox populi, vox Dei et l'invention de la nation anglaise (VlIIe-XIIe siècle)", Annales ESC, 4-5, 1992, pp. 1071-89.

158 The Emergence of French Research Policy: Chance or Necessity? new organisational forms. But, all these innovations were not designed ab initio, they were produced in the process of mobilisation around research policy. Let me just give an example: during the reflections on the importance of science, one began to produce new indicators and statistics about scientific production. Those indicators presupposed a conceptualisation of scientific activity. Another example of such a concept emerging from the focus on research policy and used afterward to develop new practices has recently been studied: it is the famous idea of "technological gap". L. Sebesta has shown how this very concept is a mixing of eco• nomical, scientific, industrial, nationalist preoccupations.25

In this perspective, research policy appears as a very efficient concept and practice focalizing the interrogations and projects of many actors, who were able to share a common aspiration, even if with very variable interests. This induced collaborations, oppositions and compromises between various local behaviours. The intertwining of different projects, under the flag of the common statement that research policy was necessary, generated new categories: indicators, management of skills, networks, institutional innovations. From this perspective, many aspects were at stake while discussing research policy. One can try to summarise some of them.

First of all, one has to note the important influence of daily practice on the definition of what might constitute the ideal field of research policy. In this sense, research policy is promoting ways of elaborating some general knowledge out of local experiences. The growing interest in research policy is grounded in practices whose importance should not be neglected but whose pertinence is also historically situated and contingent. This complex between scien• tific practice and organisational setting (a quite common feature) has produced and was rein• forced by a political mythology centred around the preeminent place of science in society. Research policy was then a new tool to think about the relationship between science and its social environment. This pertinence of the collective statement "research policy" must however be considered as strictly confined to a specific period and with changing overtones from planification to evaluation.

Apparently, the Gaullist turn amplified the process initiated by the Mendès France government and the CSRSPT. The reality is probably more complex than this simple description. As regards the new organism, the DGRST, it was clearly a compromise between the idea of the CSRSPT and two concurrent options: the industrial one and the choice to provide incentives for specific fields. Hence, during the years 1959-1961, the general picture was still one of competing logics. But, one should underline that the "Pianist" one has progressively been knocked out. This was not a sudden defeat. On the contrary, this had been

25 L. Sebesta, Les usages politiques du concept d'écart technologiques pendant les années soixante, paper presented at the seminar of La Villette, October 1994.

159 François Jacq progressively achieved through various channels. Young scientists became heads of those new organisms and chose to privilege a logic of innovation. The stress was more on the selection of some research groups, on encouraging the realisation of peculiar devices than on organising an area at large. Management of science left the realm of individual initiative and transformed research policy.26

To put it quickly, the old model of scientific entrepreneur ruling over commission and promoting growth of some networks progressively vanished. After having been a most disputed issue, research policy remained the thing of some professional experts and of some institutions like the DGRST. But, at the same time, other options gained autonomy. Indus• trialists, like M. Ponte, were dissatisfied with the way the things were going with DGRST's committees. The choice to privilege innovation was partially opposed to the conception of large technical developments. As soon as 1963, steps were taken to promote industrial development as the adequate response to the scientific challenge.

Three different logics had gained autonomy and now organised the landscape. Hence, research and technology policy had no superior rationale, it was enacted through many different options, and as soon as some of them became more powerful, the fictive unity burst out and gave birth to other public policies. Paradoxically, research policy, whose evolution seems often so uncertain, acquired a foremost status and was the matrix for other state policies.

Debates around research policy also dealt with political legitimacy. Who would be the recognised spokesmen of what should be proper scientific organisation. A large part of the actors' work was to produce, thanks to their own local experience, tentative generalisations which might gain a wider support.

I have tried to illustrate the historically situated character of the notion of research policy. Characterising scientific policy as a very peculiar form of collective imperative, used by many actors and invested with many meanings, allows to understand how novelty, and hence history, could be produced neither by chance, nor by necessity, at the crossroads of general determina• tions and historical singularities. Research policy during the fifties and sixties can not be con• sidered as a causal explanatory factor, at best it provides us with a good instrument to decipher a complex of practices and interests whose interaction might stabilise peculiar configurations.

26 See for instance the reports published by the OCDE in 1964-1965 on the situation of research in different countries. The DGRST launched similar studies on the American, English and German cases.

160 Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 - 1960) José M. Sánchez-Ron

In 1898 Spain lost its war against the United States and was forced to abandon its last colonies: Cuba and the Philippine Islands. At the time, a large number of Spaniards thought that the cause of the defeat was the scientific and technological inferiority of their country. At the Spanish Parliament, the deputy Eduardo Vincenti exclaimed on June 23, 1899:

I will not stop saying, leaving aside a false patriotism, that we must follow the example that the United States has given to us. This country has defeated us not only because it is stronger, but because it has a higher level of education than we have; in no way because they have been more brave. No Yankee has put his chest against our Navy or Army, but rather a machine invented by some electrician or machinist. There has been no fight. We have been defeated in the laboratory and in the offices, not at sea or on the mainland.1

As we see in Vincenti's statement, lack of education was identified as one of the causes of the defeat. Indeed, as the nineteenth century reached its end, no specific Ministry of Education existed in Spain. It was, however, obvious that some political reforms ought to be implemented, and in 1900 a Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts was established.

As far as science is concerned, the creation of such a Ministry did not mean much. Science policy was alien to the interests of the many governments of different ideological orientations which took power, one after the other, in an almost frenetic succession. Some measures were taken to improve the educational situation, but those improvements were mainly centred on the elementary level, as it was in fact appropriate in a country in which 71 % of the population was illiterate as late as 1900 (by 1930, the percentage had lowered to a still enormous 44%). At the university level some new reforms were introduced, but they applied only to the organisation of studies, that is, to teaching, which was, by the way, essentially "theoretical". As far as the Faculties of Sciences were concerned, all contemporary accounts agree that by 1900 the few rooms in which some experiments were performed could hardly be called laboratories. In 1917, referring to the budget he had received from 1887 till 1901, José Rodríguez Carracido,

1 Eduardo Vincenti y Reguerra, Política pedagógica. Treinta años de vida parlamentaria, Imp. Hijos de Hernández, Madrid, 1916; quoted in Yvonne Turin, L'éducation et l'école en Espagne de 1874 à 1902. Liberalisme et tradition, Presses Universitaires, Paris, 1959, p. 375.

161 José M. Sánchez-Ron

Professor of Biological Chemistry in Madrid (a chair with teaching duties at the Faculties of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Sciences) and former Rector of his University, complained saying that:

For fourteen years, biological chemistry was taught as if it were metaphysics; all the ministers unanimously opposed (here there were no differences among the different parties) the request for the indispensable elements to establish a most necessary laboratory.2

Against that background, a new and - by Spanish as well as by international standards - revolutionary institution was created in January 1907 by the Ministry of Instrucción Pública, at a moment when the liberals were in power: the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Instituciones Científicas (Board for the Promotion of Studies and Scientific Research; JAE). Despite its official origin, the Junta proved to be throughout its existence a rather autonomous and independent institution, though at times (especially under conservative governments) it encountered serious difficulties. Its first president was Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the great histologist who won the Nobel prize for Medicine and Physiology in 1906, and a man who knew full well the difficulties faced by scientists and young students of science in Spain. He held that post until his death in 1934. However, the moving spirit ofthat institution was its secretary: José Castillejo, a professor of Roman law at Madrid University deeply interested in education, whose political acumen and tact were considerable.

The JAE had a clear science policy programme. As a matter of fact, it was the first institution in Spanish contemporary history whose activities were guided by what we might call a "science policy". Its aim was to help in the renewal and improvement of the Spanish educational system at all levels, not only in the promotion and development of the exact and natural sciences, but also in disciplines like history, philology, law, art, or philosophy. Considering that one of the main problems in Spain was the lack of knowledge of what was going on in more developed countries, the JAE made sure that a basic tenet of its policies was to send graduate students, as well as school and university professors, abroad. Indeed, the decree by which the Junta was created in 1907 was explicit on this point: "The country that lives in isolation holds up progress and becomes a decadent one. Because of this, all the civilised nations take part in that movement of international scientific relationship [that we are witnessing at present], including not only the small European countries, but also nations that seem far away from modern life, such as China and even Turkey, whose colony of students in Germany is four times the Spanish one; that is, [we are] last but two among all the Europeans."

2 José Rodríguez Carracido, Estudios histórico-críticos de la ciencia española, Imprenta de "Alrededor del Mundo", Madrid, 1917; reprinted: Alta Fulla/Mundo Científico, Barcelona, 1988.

162 Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 - I960)

In fact, during its existence (1907-1938) the JAE received approximately 9,000 requests for grants, of which more than 2,000 were funded.3 Most of the holders of those scholarships went to France, Germany and Switzerland. The percentages for each discipline are also significant: pedagogy, 18%; medicine, 18%; art, 10%; law, 10%; chemistry, 6%; history, 5.7%; natural sciences, 5%; philology and literature, 4%; engineering, 3.6%; physics, 2.4%; mathe• matics, 2%; and philosophy, 1%.

However, the Junta was also convinced that improving the country's scientific standing required more than sending individuals abroad. For what would have happened when those individuals returned to Spain? In the opinion of those who created and ruled the institution, the universities had no way of profiting from so many trained scientists; on the contrary, it would spoil their scientific potential. Consequently, one of its aims, from the very beginning, was the creation of centres of its own (mainly in Madrid), in which advanced research could be done. Thus, in 1910 the JAE established two centres designed to control the laboratories and departments it might support or create: the Centre for Historical Studies, and the National Institute for Natural and Physical Sciences.

In spite of the backwardness of the natural sciences in Spain, the characteristics already mentioned show that the Board for the Promotion of Scientific Studies was, in many senses, a pioneer institution in the international arena. Indeed, it was quite different from organisa• tions like the British Royal Commission of the Exhibition of 1851, the German Kaiser- Wilhelm Gesellschaft, or the American Carnegie Institution of Washington, or the Rockefeller Foundation, although it is true that it had some common traits with the Rockefeller's International Educational Board.

To carry out the program the JAE was planning, no small amount of money was needed. However, past experience had shown that on scientific matters the Spanish Treasury was far from generous. Nevertheless, and contrary to all expectations, the Junta was able to secure a budget that, although meagre, was far superior to that received by any other Spanish institution or centre at the time, including all the universities. It is hard to specify the reasons for this unprecedented generosity, though a detailed study of the history of the JAE reveals the great ability and perseverance of Castillejo especially, but also of Cajal, in dealing with ministers of different political tendencies; in fact, the Junta survived under regimes as

1 About the Junta, see: F. Laporta, A. Ruiz Miguel, V. Zapatero, J. Solana, "Los orígenes culturales de la Junta para Ampliación de Estudios", Arbor, n. 493, January 1987, pp. 17-87; ibid., n. 499-500, July- August 1987, pp. 9-137; and the different articles included in José M. Sánchez Ron (ed.), 1907-1987. Ui Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas 80 años después, 2 vols., CSIC. Madrid, 1988.

163 José M. Sánchez-Ron different as the Monarchy, the Dictadura of General Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), and the Republic (1931-1936/9). It seems that in countries with the social, political, economic, and cultural characteristics of Spain at that time, a precondition for the existence of a stable research group was an adequate political shelter. Spain had not reached yet the stage of social, economic and educational development that made "political patronage" unnecessary.

While the JAE was obtaining increasing amounts of money from the Treasury, the labo• ratories at the universities, engineering schools and other institutions were having very limited success in securing new funds. Some laboratories were created - especially in Madrid, to a lesser extent in Barcelona, and just a few in Saragossa. When in 1925 August Trowbridge, former physics professor at Princeton and then director for Europe of the Physical and Biological Sciences Section of the International Educational Board, visited Madrid during the negotiations for the construction of a new physics and chemistry institute (for the Junta), he stated that the "regular laboratories of the University [in which instruction or research in physics or chemistry are carried out] are in my opinion not worth considering; physics is a little better than chemistry in equipment (chemistry has about none whatever) and possibly the lecture courses in elementary science have some value, but taken as a whole, I have never seen anywhere worse conditions in University laboratories."4

Some problems with the JAE science policy

As pointed out before, a basic tenet of the JAE policy was to send graduate students, as well as more established and senior scientists, abroad. It was an intelligent policy, which contributed to raise the level of Spanish science. But there were problems too. To appreciate some of them, I will consider a few aspects of what happened in the case of physics, one of the disciplines which progressed more rapidly in Spain during the period.

Let us begin with Bias Cabrera, the director of the JAE's Research Physics Laboratory (Laboratorio de Investigaciones Físicas), a notable physicist who held a professorship of Physics and Magnetism at Madrid University, member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and later on - in 1928 - member of the Commission Scientifique International de Physique Solvay.

Soon after assuming, in 1909-1910, the directorship of the newly created Laboratory, Cabrera asked for one of the scholarships granted by the JAE. No doubt he realised that it was one thing

4 A. Trowbridge to Wickliffe Rose, 4 May 1925 (Rockefeller Archive Center). A few aspects of the visit of Trowbridge to Madrid have been discussed by Thomas F. Glick, "La Fundación Rockefeller i Espanya: La crisi dels laboratoris", in Luis Navarro Veguillas (ed.), Historia de la Física, CIRIT, Barcelona, 1988, pp. 367-371. On the history of the Laboratorio see also J.M. Sánchez-Ron and A. Roca-Rosell, "Spain's first school of physics: Bias Cabrera's Laboratorio de Investigaciones Físicas", Osiris, 8, 1993, pp. 127-155.

164 Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 - 1960)

to be a successful physicist in Spain, to publish easily and often in the journal of the Spanish Physics and Chemistry Society, the Anales, and quite another to be a competitive international physicist. On 12 April 1912 the Junta granted him the scholarship, "for five months... to visit physics laboratories and to work on magnetism in France, Switzerland, and Germany."

Cabrera spent the greater part of his grant period at the Zurich Polytechnikum, working in the laboratory of the French physicist Pierre Weiss, by then a scientist with an established reputation in the European scientific community, especially in the field of magnetism. The months spent in Zurich were crucial in Cabrera's scientific career, not only because most of his research thereafter dealt with the study of weakly magnetic substances, but also because he would join forces with Weiss in trying to prove the existence of the "Weiss magneton," which was, according to the French professor, the natural unit of molecular magnetism. Throughout his career, Cabrera accumulated a wealth of carefully selected experimental measurements that he thought proved the existence of this magnetic unit, which was, nevertheless, eventually displaced as the fundamental unit of magnetic moment by the "Bohr magneton" (approxi• mately five times bigger than the Weiss one). Indeed, one of the conclusions to be drawn from the history of Spanish physics from 1907, when the JAE was created, until 1936, the year when the Spanish Civil War began, is that Spanish physicists seldom abandoned their first interests, especially those acquired while studying or working abroad.

A particularly striking example of the way in which scholarships abroad could pay off, is the case of Miguel Catalán. While holding one of the JAE scholarships in 1920-1921 at Alfred Fowler's laboratory at the Imperial College in London, Catalán discovered the multiplets, in the spectra of manganese - a discovery, of fundamental importance for the development of quantum physics, that brought sudden fame to Catalán, of course, but also to the Madrid Laboratory.

Almost all the physicists and chemists who became senior researchers of a sort in the Laboratory, whether permanently or temporarily, received grants from the JAE to study and work abroad. Thus, in 1909 Angel del Campo went to Paris, to work with Georges Urbain; in 1909-1910, Manuel Martínez Risco visited Amsterdam, where he collaborated with Peter Zeeman; in 1912-1913, Julio Guzman went to Leipzig, to work with Drucker; Santiago Pina de Rubíes spent six months in Geneva and Russia, and Jerónimo Vecino, three months in Paris, studying metrology at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures; in 1916-1918 Julio Palacios, who would become the leader of the X-ray diffraction group of the Labora• tory, went to Leiden, to work with Kammerlingh Onnes in low temperatures; in 1929 and 1932, Arturo Duperier, who in the late Thirties, while in exile in England, won fame for his researches on cosmic rays, went to Strasbourg, Zurich and Paris (where he worked with Charles Maurin), while Juan Cabrera, Bias' younger brother, went to Paris, where he worked with Maurice de Broglie.

165 José M. Sánchez-Ron

This scientific policy implied a considerable advance with respect to what had been the norm in Spanish science previous history. However, there are other aspects to consider, aspects which show the many facets of science policy. Only those scientists who remained in the Madrid Laboratory after their return from scholarships abroad kept doing research. Thus, the time that Martínez Risco spent in Saragossa (1914-1919) as Professor of Acoustics and Optics was wasted from the point of view of scientific research. When, in 1919, Martínez Risco returned to Madrid, he went back to Cabrera's Laboratory, but now without much success. In 1914, Vecino got a chair in Santiago de Compostela, and the following year one in Saragossa; but thereafter, until his premature death in 1929, he did no scientific work of significance. The same can be said of Juan Cabrera, who in 1920 also obtained a chair in Saragossa, where he spent the rest of his career. If we assume that these physicists were not very different from the ones who had remained in Madrid, continuing their research, then we must conclude that it was the lack of resources or of a congenial scientific atmosphere that brought their research to a stop. And when we consider that Saragossa was probably, after Madrid and Barcelona, the third most important university for scientific studies, we are further led to appreciate the short• comings of the centralisation of scientific research in the Madrid JAE's Laboratory and its isolation from the other centres in Spain, which did not receive similar benefits.

Prelude to the war: the Rockefeller Foundation Institute

Bias Cabrera's Laboratory achieved a considerable success in the 1920s. For the first time in Spanish physics, there existed a centre in which advanced, internationally competitive research was systematically done. However, it finally became clear that the resources available to the JAE were not enough to cope with the dynamics of development of the research which was already being conducted or projected. Faced with such a situation, Castillejo, who during a visit to the United States in August 1919 had contacted the Rockefeller Foundation in search of help for improving the sanitary situation in Spain, thought that perhaps the newly organised International Educational Board (IEB) could help in this case too. And when Wickliffe Rose, the director of the IEB, visited Spain in January 1924, Castillejo took him to visit the main laboratories of physics, chemistry, natural sciences, and agriculture at Madrid, and sounded him out as to whether the Board would be ready to make a donation for a new physics and chemistry laboratory. Soon afterwards, on 21 July 1924, Castillejo wrote a memorandum to the IEB asking its assistance, and making it clear that the JAE hoped that the Spanish Government would help too.

The negotiations between the IEB, the Junta, and the Spanish Government were rather complex, and I will not discuss them here.5 However, it is important to remark here that the IEB assistance was not, by any means, limited to providing funds for the construction of a new laboratory, since the Madrid scientists were totally inexperienced in planning and designing laboratories. As a matter of fact, Charles Mendenhall, physics professor at Wisconsin

166 Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 - 1960)

and one of IEB officers, was amazed in finding out that the Spanish physicists did not know that they had to mount machinery on concrete piers to avoid vibrations, or to build removable interior walls so that space could be altered to fit changing research needs, or to locate the machine shop and electrical switchboards close to the laboratories and not in a separate building. It was obvious that the Spaniards had to gain experience, but at the same time they had to overcome their passive attitude, that led them to avoid taking decisions and pursue narrow lines of research - characteristics typical of societies that gave scientists little support.6

The negotiations with the IEB offered to the physicists and chemists of the JAE Laboratory the opportunity of learning about aspects of science policy they had not practised before. At the same time the Spanish Government was confronted with what was for it a totally new experience: to respond to the IEB concrete and definite requirements. It had, for example, to pay for the main• tenance of the new laboratory. Indeed, the Spanish Government lived up to the IEB expectations, and the assistance it provided was not discontinued when, early in 1931, the Monarchy was abolished (on April 14, a Republic - the Second in Spanish history - was established). By then, the new centre was almost completed, and already in partial operation. By September the building was ready, and the Instituto Nacional de Física y Química (National Institute for Physics and Chemistry) was officially handed over by the JAE to the Government on 6 February 1932. Pierre Weiss, Arnold Sommerfeld, Richard Willstätter, Paul Scherrer, and Otto Honigschmidt, all connected with scientists of the old Laboratory, were present at the ceremony.

Although a great deal had been achieved, the future was uncertain. True, there was now a splendid Institute, but had Spain really learnt the science policy lessons the IEB officers so persistently tried to teach to its scientists and politicians? The very least we can say is that there was no opportunity to see if that was the case. What did happen was that a new centre began functioning, with more personnel and more resources than ever, but no other research centre was founded or a more complete and modem science policy implemented in the five years which remained till the beginning of the Civil War (1936-1939).

Science and the Civil War

We know too well that quite often science has obtained significant benefits from wars. World War II, that followed immediately the Spanish struggle, is a paradigmatic example in this sense.

5 See Thomas F. Glick, "La Fundación Rockefeller en España: Augustus Trowbridge y las negocia• ciones para el Instituto Nacional de Física y Química, 1923-1927", in 1907-1987. La Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas 80 años después, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 281-300; and José M. Sánchez Ron, Miguel Catalán. Su obra y su mundo, Fundación Ramón Menéndez Pidal and CSIC, Madrid, 1994, chap. 5. 6 This point was made by Robert E. Kohler, Partners in Science. Foundations and Natural Scientists, 1900-1945, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991, p. 192.

167 José M. Sánchez-Ron

The case of the Spanish war was radically different. The Civil War was not only cruel, it was also primitive, and it left no place for scientists. There were no radar or Manhattan Spanish pro• jects, not even much more modest programmes depending on scientific expertise. Cabrera (and Castillejo) went into exile; the chemist Enrique Moles, the leader of the Chemistry sections of the Laboratory, took over the directorship of the Instituto, but it was simply impossible for those who remained to do any real scientific work. And when the war was over, the new regime turned the Instituto - as well as all the JAE's facilities - to the newly created (November 1939) Con• sejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Higher Council of Scientific Research; CSIC). In the case of the Rockefeller Institute, this meant turning it over to scientists who included many fierce enemies of the JAE. Catalán, for example, was denied entrance to the laboratory.

Science in Franco's Spain: scientific institutions and ideology

The CSIC, the scientific institution that would dominate Spanish science for some decades, was, on several respects, a peculiar institution. Despite the fact that it inherited all the JAE properties, it was designed with the explicit aim of breaking with what was considered an ignominious past. The "national" forces regarded the JAE as a stronghold of wicked free• thinkers who would not cease, as long as they had the chance, to use their works, pursuits and teachings against the ideals embraced by the "Glorious National Movement". "What we want - stated José Ibañez Martín, minister of National Education from 1939 to 1951 and president of the CSIC from 1939 to 1967, during the Consejó's opening ceremony on 30 October 1940 - is a Catholic science; that is, science that because of its subjection to the supreme reason of the universe, because of its consonance with the faith in the 'true light that illumines every man that comes into this world', is able to attain the purest universal note. Let us, therefore, in this hour, annihilate all those scientific heresies that have dried up the rivers of our national genius and have plunged us into apathy and decadence."

The references to Catholicism, frequent in the official literature dealing with the structure and purposes of the CSIC at the time, were not mere rhetoric. The new institution was put in the hands of a man, José María Albareda, a specialist in the chemistry of the soils, who was an influential member of the Opus Dei (he entered into the organisation in 1937, becoming priest in 1959). Albareda was general secretary of the CSIC since its creation till his death, in 1966.7 Besides, the Consejo included among its centres an Institute of Theology, directed by the Bishop of Madrid-Alcalá.

7 On the role of Albareda in the creation of the Consejo, see José M. Sánchez Ron, "Política científica e ideología: Albareda y los primeros años del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas", Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza, n. 14, 1992, pp. 53-74. About the first years of the CSIC, see also María J. Santesmases and Emilio Muñoz, "Las primeras décadas del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas: Una introducción a la política científica del régimen franquista", Boletín de ¡a Institución Libre de Enseñanza, n. 16, 1993, pp. 73-94.

168 Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 - 1960)

Leaving aside the CSIC and adopting a more general perspective, we must consider that the Civil War provoked a social, cultural and economic collapse, whose effects were to be felt long after the end of the fighting. These effects were aggravated by Spain's isolation after the defeat of Germany in World War II - political and economic but also scientific and technological isolation. It was not only that the Spanish scientists found themselves discri• minated against by the international community on account of the character and policies of their government, but that the Falangist ideology imposed on them a system of autarky. Thus, rather than participating in fields of basic research common to the international community, Spanish scientists initially favoured applied research, aimed at covering basic necessities (for instance, fuel).

Due to this situation, it is interesting to see how Spanish scientists and politicians reacted to some of the most important - or, at least, popular - scientific developments of the period. Of course, to cover all the possible examples would exceed the possibilities of this essay, but since there is one case which offers several interesting lessons - nuclear energy - I will devote the remaining pages to it.

Nuclear energy and Spanish politics

The news of the dropping of the atomic bomb was promptly reported in the Spanish press. We also know of several public conferences where some aspects of nuclear energy were discussed.8 However, it was not until 1948, and then only in response to a foreign initiative, that Spain set up a policy and an executive body in the field of nuclear science, technology and natural resources - EPALE/JIA. In that year, Francesco Scandone, a professor at the University of Florence, was invited to give a course on "Interference filters", "Antireflecting plates" and "Phase microscopy" in the recently created "Daza Valdês" Institute of Optics of the CSIC, directed by José Maria Otero Navascués, a Navy Artillery engineer. Scandone asked to the participants in the course if he could speak to someone to have some information about uranium deposits in Spain.

Armando Duran, Head of the Section for Geometrical Optics and System Calculus of the Institute, who was attending Scandone's lectures, assumed that Scandone was not asking his question in a totally disinterested way. He was not wrong. In conversations with Duran, the Italian professor explained the interest that a group of Italian researchers had in nuclear studies. It was obvious that the Italians wanted to develop a nuclear research programme but had no uranium deposits of their own. Given that the Allies still looked upon the Italians with

8 A more complete study can be found in J. Ordonez and J.M. Sánchez-Ron, "Nuclear energy in Spain: From Hiroshima to the sixties", in Paul Forman and José M. Sánchez-Ron (eds.), National Militaiy Establishments and the Advancement of Science and Technology, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1996, pp. 185-213.

169 José M. Sánchez-Ron a certain amount of mistrust, Spain was apparently the only available source in these early postwar years.

Duran was well connected with the powerful people of that period. He visited a friend, General Juan Vigón, Minister of the Air Force since 1940. Collaboration between Italians and Spaniards was begun as a result of these contacts and conversations. In order to provide legal and financial backing to the group of Spanish researchers who would dedicate their efforts to nuclear subjects, a company was founded: formally a private company, EPALE - Estudios y Patentes de Aleaciones Especiales (Studies and Patents for Special Alloys). EPALE was administratively covered by a secret decree creating the Junta de Investiga• ciones Atómicas (Atomic Research Board; JIA). General Franco signed the decree on 6 September 1948. Its preamble explained the opportunistic considerations underlying the formation of the Board:

The possibilities of exploiting atomic energy for industrial purposes has awakened, in all parts of the world, not only an interest in keeping all research in this important field of Science within the utmost secrecy, but has also awakened a desire to acquire the basic raw materials needed to exploit this future source of energy. [...] This kind of radioactive mineral does exist in our country, and this makes it necessary, for considerations of economic imperative and national security, that we know of its existence and that we prepare a team of technicians who are qualified in the surveying and use of it, with a view to exploiting atomic energy by means of technical exchanges with foreign countries and collaboration with those countries that are dedicating their efforts in studying and gaining experience in the matter.

The JIA directly depended from the Presidency of the Government and had the following aims:

- To encourage the research necessary to determine the siting and extent of Spanish deposits of uranium and other radioactive minerals to be used in the production of atomic energy;

- To study the possibilities - if necessary through exchanges with other countries - of making a profit from these minerals and of transforming the mineral into pure oxide on an industrial scale;

- To establish relations with other foreign bodies, to form a team of Spanish scientists qualified in the survey and research of radioactive minerals, and the industrial production of atomic energy;

- To make use, on an experimental scale, of the material necessary for the production of atomic energy;

170 Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 - 1960)

- To prepare the building of an experimental thermonuclear pile;

- To implement those activities that the Board might consider necessary to progress with the experiments in the application of atomic energy.

In this list of purposes, two points must be emphasised. First, there was an evident desire to prevent the country from being expropriated of valuable radioactive minerals because of ignorance or lack of foresight. Behind this concern there lay not only the scarcity of usable uranium minerals at the time, but also the rhetoric of self-sufficiency of the Franco regime. Second, in those days of political isolation, the possession of some scarce raw material was considered to be a matter of great strategic importance, but there was a clear recognition of the lack of Spanish scientists qualified in atomic and nuclear physics. And there were the industrial interests that would be the concern of the JIA, for in the second article of the aforementioned Decree it was suggested that the Board might be converted into an industrial company.

The organic structure of EPALE was very simple. As chairman of the board of directors of the fictitious company, the government named a prestigious engineer and scientist, Esteban Terradas. The other members of the Board were José Maria Otero, Manuel Lora Tamayo (professor of organic chemistry, and minister of Education from 1962 to 1968), Armando Duran and José Ramón Sobredo. Its offices were in the Optics Institute of the CSIC. Terradas served as a bridge between EPALE and the university: in 1949 e 1950, some of the courses which were given in the Company's interests, took place in the Physics and Mathematics Seminar directed by Terradas at the University. In the experimental area, EPALE was endeavouring to gain, in as short a time as possible, the necessary techniques with which to build a slow neutron uranium reactor.

The Nuclear Energy Board

The secret period of the Atomic Research Board did not, however, last very long. Certainly the research that was being carried out did not justify such measures, but the opening up of information on nuclear activities in Spain coincided with modifications in the political situation, and especially with the change in the attitude of the United States towards Spain. Thus, late in 1950 we begin to find newspaper articles on the subject. The break with secrecy arrived with a declaration by José María Otero published in the newspaper La Vanguardia:

It is time that people know what is being done, and what is planned to be done with regard to atomic research in Spain. Remaining silent on the subject can do no more than encourage our enemies to fantasise, especially considering that, at the present moment, we have nothing to hide, nor have we to cover up any negligence. Logically, nuclear and atomic research is the responsibility of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and,

171 José M. Sánchez-Ron

more particularly, at the Consejo de Física. Due to the nature of these studies, several chemists have been incorporated into the Council.9

Indeed, on 21 October 1951, through a Decree, EPALE/JIA was superseded by the Junta de Energía Nuclear (Nuclear Energy Board; JEN).10 Although formally a new institution, the JEN was based on the old structures, persons and experiences of EPALE (except Terradas, who had died). Coherently with the provisions in the founding Decree of EPALE, which foresaw its transformation into an industrial company, the JEN was attached to the Ministry for Industry. Its first chairman was the same General Vigón, whom we encountered at the inception of EPALE, while Otero Navascués was vice-chairman and director general. On Vigón's death, in May 1955, the chair was assumed by another military man, General Hernández Vidal, who remained in the post until 1958. It is a characteristic of the Spanish Nuclear Energy Board that although it was not part of any military department, for many years all its general directors were drawn from the military. In this sense, Spanish nuclear policy was heavily dependent on the perception that the military had of the world, including the role that science and technology play in it.

Another of the pervading influences on Spanish nuclear energy came from the other side of the Atlantic ocean, from the United States of America. Indeed, it is simply impossible to understand Spain's scientific policies in this field without referring to the American attitudes and interventions.

Nuclear energy, Spain and the United States

Although Spain officially maintained a neutral position during the Second World War, its unambiguous ideological commitment was to the Axis forces; and indeed, Spain sent a military force to the Russian front: the "División Azul" comprising some 18,000 men. Of course, the Allies were well aware of Spain's position in the international arena. Near the end of the war, on 10 March 1945, President Roosevelt wrote to the new US ambassador in Madrid in the following terms:

Having been helped to power by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and having patterned itself along totalitarian lines, the present regime in Spain is naturally the subject of distrust by a great many American citizens, who find it difficult to see the justification for this country to continue to maintain relations with such a regime. Most certainly we don't

9 As reproduced in the newspaper Madrid, 30 November 1950. 10 For a history of the JEN, see Rafael Calvo et al. (eds.), Historia nuclear de España, Sociedad Nuclear Española, Madrid, 1995.

172 Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 - I960)

forget Spain's official position with and assistance to our Axis enemies at a time when the fortunes of war were less favourable to us, nor can we disregard the activities, aims, orga• nisations and public utterance of the Falange, both past and present.

These actions cannot be wiped out by actions more favourable to us now that we are about to achieve our goal of complete victory over those enemies of ours, with whom the present Spanish regime identified itself in the past spiritually and by its public expression and acts.

The fact that our Government maintains formal diplomatic relations with the present Spanish regime should not be interpreted by anyone to imply approval of that regime and its sole party, the Falange, which has been openly hostile to the United States and which has tried to spread its Fascist party ideas in the Western Hemisphere. Our victory over Germany will carry with it the extermination of Nazi and similar ideologies."

And, indeed, the arrival of the Allied victory only increased Spain's isolation.

In June, 1945, the conference held in San Francisco to constitute the United Nations international organisation, approved unanimously the proposal of the Mexican delegation that participation in the new organisation be disallowed "to the states whose regimes have been established with the help of military forces belonging to the countries which have waged war against the United Nations, as long as those regimes are in power." The resolution obviously referred to Spain, although no nation was named.

One month later, in July 1945, H. S. Truman, J. V Stalin and C. R. Attlee, meeting in Postdam, jointly condemned Spain and reiterated that it was impossible for Spain to join the United Nations. Finally, in December 1946, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution barring the Franco Government from membership in.the UNO's specialised agencies, and recommending that all members of the organisation immediately recall from Madrid their Ambassadors and Plenipotentiary Ministers accredited there. This resolution marked the lowest point in Spain's political isolation following War World II.

However the posture of the United States government towards Spain soon changed. On 18 January 1950, Dean Acheson, Secretary of State, wrote to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pointing out that the US delegation had serious doubts about the wisdom and efficacy of the actions recommended in the December 1946 resolution, but that it had voted for the resolution "in the interests of harmony and of obtaining the closest

Quoted in the New York Times, 27 September 1945, pp. 1-2.

173 José M. Sánchez-Ron possible approach to unanimity in the General Assembly on the Spanish problem."12 Acheson went on to say that "we have stated on a number of occasions that we would favour the amendment of the 1946 resolution of the General Assembly to permit specialised agencies to admit Spain to membership." There were, however, limits to the American government's support of Spanish participation in the international political arena: "It is difficult to envisage Spain as a full member of the free Western community without substantial advances in such directions as increased civil liberties and as religious freedom and the freedom to exercise the elementary rights of organised labour."

The American ambivalence towards Franco's Spain did not show up also on the economic level; as Acheson pointed out in his letter, the US Government favoured an economic policy "based on purely economic, as distinct from political grounds." Therefore, there would be no objections to private business and banking arrangements, as well as trade activities. Spain would be free "to apply to and with the Export-Import Bank for credits for specific projects on the same basis as any other country."13

All political objections still present in Acheson's January 1950 letter began to fade away in light of the increasingly polarised international political situation. (The Korean war, it will be recalled, began in June 1950.) Spain, whose Government was fiercely anti-communist, increasingly appeared to the United States as a valuable ally in a strategically important location. In particular, the US Navy and Air Force pressed their Government to strengthen its relations with Spain. No doubt all these factors contributed to the United Nations' annulment on 4 November 1950, of its 1946 resolution. Thereupon, Spain was permitted entry into the organisation.

It would be another three years, however, before Spain and the United States signed their first diplomatic agreement - on 26 September 1953. Considering what Spain had to offer to the Americans, it is not surprising that the agreement dealt with mutual military assistance.14 The United States accepted "to contribute to the effective air defence of Spain and to improve the equipment of its military and naval forces," while Spain would authorise the United States "to

12 Achenson's letter is reproduced in A.J. Lleonart y Amselem, España y ONU - IV (1950), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 1991, pp. 329-339. 13 Indeed, in July 1949, the United States had awarded Spain a loan of 25 million dollars through the Chase National Bank. 14 The fact that Spain was not a member of NATO (the European members of the military organisation did not accept the possibility of its admission), and consequently its territory unavailable to the forces of the Treaty, should also be taken into account when considering the US attitude.

174 Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 - I960)

develop, maintain and utilise for military purposes, jointly with the Government of Spain, such areas and facilities in territory under Spanish jurisdiction as may be agreed."15

The ground was being prepared for the agreement - signed two years later - providing US assistance to Spain in the field of atomic energy. On 8 December 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented before the General Assembly of the United Nations, his programme for the peaceful use of atomic energy: "Atoms for Peace". Eisenhower proposed that an inter• national agency would be set up under the auspices of the United Nations, to which the United States would contribute with fissionable material and reactor technology. As a result of this proposal, the International Atomic Energy Agency was established, with offices in Vienna. Further, on 30 August 1954, Eisenhower signed a new law on atomic energy, permitting the United States to provide information and aid to friendly countries by means of bilateral agreements; while the law previously in force, the so called McMahon bill of 20 December 1945 (known also as the "Atomic Energy Act of 1946"), put severe restrictions on the transference of nuclear know-how to other countries.

Behind Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" there were several motives. One of them was certainly propaganda; another was economic profit for the American nuclear industry, as in the Spanish case. On 19 July 1955, Lewis Strauss, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Com• mission, Walworth Barbour, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and the Spanish Ambassador, José Maria de Areilza, signed an agreement in Washington for cooperation "concerning civil uses of Atomic Energy."16 The agreement was to enter into force on the day it was signed, and would remain in force until 18 July 1960, when it could be subject to renewal. The agreement obliged the United States to provide Spain (which desired "to pursue a research and development program looking toward the realisation of the peaceful and humanitarian uses of atomic energy") with the uranium enriched in the isotope U-235, "as may be required as initial and replacement fuel in the operation" of the research reactors which Spain "may, in consultation with the Commission", decide to construct and operate. The quantity of uranium enriched in the isotope U-235 transferred by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to the Government of Spain should not "at any time be in excess

15 "Defence agreement between the United States of America and Spain", US Treaties and Other International Agreements, vol. 4, part 2, Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1955, pp. 1876-1894, 1896-1902. 16 "Agreement for Cooperation between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Spain concerning civil uses of Atomic Energy", United States Treaties and other International Agreements, vol. 6, part 2, Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1955, pp. 2689-2694.

175 José M. Sánchez-Ron of 6 kilograms of contained U-235 in uranium enriched up to a maximum of twenty percent of U-235, plus such additional quantity as, in the opinion of the Commission, is necessary to permit the efficient and continuous operation of the reactor or reactors while replaced fuel elements are radioactively cooling in Spain or while fuel elements are in transit." It was also stated that when the fuel elements containing U-235 leased by the AEC required replacement, they would be returned to the Commission unaltered after their removal from the reactor.

The articles of the Agreement make it clear that the United States Government retained, through the AEC, effective control of nuclear matters in Spain. Initially only research reactors were considered in the negotiation of the agreement. However, in the wake of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which for the first time charged the AEC with "bringing nuclear reactor technology into the marketplace",17 it was added "that this initial Agreement for Cooperation will lead to consideration of further cooperation extending to the design, construction, and operation of power producing reactors." No doubt, the inclusion in the Agreement of a provision that "private individuals or private organisations in either the United States or Spain may deal directly with private individuals and private organisations in the other country" helped to achieve the desired openness of the Spanish market to private American companies involved in the construction of power reactors.

Indeed, we know that there were US firms interested in profiting from the Spanish interests in nuclear energy. An example in this direction is provided by Theodore von Karman, who since 1948 maintained close relationships with the Spanish National Aeronautics Agency (Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeronautica; INTA). On 5 May 1957, von Karman wrote to an unidentified "Teddy", offering him some information related to the prospects of nuclear energy in Spain. Apparently, a group of "about 15 Spanish firms (banks and industrial organisations)... will make up an organisation for general study of the nuclear energy question; they are corresponding with almost every one in the business: G.E., Westinghouse..." The Chase National Bank was also supposed to participate (the vice-president of the Madrid branch of the bank took part also in the conversations). Von Karman learnt of this through his aeronautical contacts, people associated with INTA and Julio de La Cierva, a cousin of the inventor of the autogyro and owner of Manufacturas Metálicas Madrileñas. Von Karman, always keen to making money, told his correspondent that:

17 R.G. Hewlett and J.M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953-1961, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1989, p. 184. Some aspects of the industrial dimension of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 have been considered in Brian Balogh, Chain Reaction. Expert debate and public participation in American commercial nuclear power, 1945-1975, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1991, chapter 4. Just how unprecedented was this role for the AEC can be easily understood if one remembers that up to 1953 over 90 percent of reactordevelopmen t funds had been poured into direct military applications.

176 Styles in Spanish Science Policy (1900 - I960)

we talked over the question among us and came to the result that for us it would not have much sense to hang on this large group. We thought that if you decide to form a study- company with us, based on the future application of the NDA reactor the following could be achieved:

- During the development time (about 18 months) of the reactor our joint company could make the first serious study of the possible application of such reactor system in Spain; for production of electric power, for production of power for irrigation, eventually for making sea water usable for agricultural purposes...

- In the second stage the study company would determine possibilities of partial manu• facturing of the reactor in Spain and the erection of the installation.18

But returning to the Agreement between Spain and the United States, it must be pointed out that it was just one among the many that the US government signed at the time. Treaties, identical line by line to the one with Spain, were signed in Washington, with Turkey (June 10), Israel (July 12), China (July 18), Lebanon (July 18), Colombia (July 19), Portugal (July 21), Venezuela (July 21), Denmark (July 25), Philippines (July 27), Italy (July 28), Argentina (July 29), Brazil (August 3), Greece (August 4), Chile (August 8) and Pakistan (August 11). For American diplomats connected with nuclear energy agreements, the summer of 1955 was no doubt a busy one.19 Not all countries, of course, received the same treatment. The exceptions, for evident reasons, were: Belgium, Canada, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

As a consequence of the Agreements signed, every significant element of the JEN's pro• gramme since the late Fifties, when the construction of a research reactor began, was pre• empted by the Americans' requirement that the fissionable material loaned could be used only as fuel in a "swimming pool" type reactor. Indeed, during JEN's first two decades, at least, there is no doubt that this institution - in other words, the agency which controlled the entire Spanish nuclear development programme - was completely dependent on the supplies, materials, know-how and wishes of the United States. In the long term, any dependency is negative, and Spain never became more than a mere consumer in this field - its scientific capacity in this field being very little developed. However, it is only fair to recognise that,

is "Th. Von Karman Collection", Robert A. Millikan Memorial Library, California Institute of Technology Archives, box 67.6. For a description of von Karman Archives, see Judith R. Goodstein and Carolyn Kopp (eds.), 77îe Theodore von Karman Collection at the California Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (CA), 1981. 19 By 1961 the United States had negotiated thirty-eight agreements with thirty-seven countries.

177 José M. Sánchez-Ron without the American aid, the albeit modest complex of nuclear installations just outside of the University of Madrid would never have been set up.

For their part, the United States obtained a return which, whilst it is not quantifiable, was by no means insignificant. "Atoms for Peace", for example, was presented to the public without criticism or objections. The US Embassy in Madrid published a brochure which was widely distributed, in which Eisenhower expressed his supposedly pacifist message: "The United States promises before you and thus before the whole world, to help to resolve the terrible atomic dilemma, to fully dedicate both its heart and its intellect to finding the means by which the miraculous inventiveness of Man may be put to the consecration of human life, and not its destruction". It is, however, beside the point to recall that at the same time Eisenhower was pronouncing this message to the Spanish people, the Spanish territory itself was dotted of American Air Forces Bases, into and out of which atomic bombs were constantly transported - and four of them fell in the sea off the coast of Palomares.20

Conclusions

The history of XXth century Spanish science, in which several types of science policies can be identified, shows quite clearly how permeable and dependent science policy is from the many constraints that affect the political, economic and cultural life of a nation. In a world with such a complicated and interrelated history as ours this should not constitute any surprise, although certainly a fact not to be forgotten.

20 On 7 January 1966, a US B-52 bomber disintegrated over Palomares, a small village on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, releasing four hydrogen bombs. One was soon recovered; the conventional explosives in two others detonated, spewing plutonium over a wide area. A lengthy search went on for the fourth bomb, eventually located 760 meters below sea level, five miles offshore. Not until 44 days after the accident did the US admitted that one of its H-bombs was missing.

178 Fascism and Italian Science Policy Roberto Maiocchi

It has often been remarked that modern Italian culture - at least up to the second world war - has historically been marked by "provincialism", the tendency to close in on itself, and by scant interest in what was being done in Europe and in the rest of the world. I have no intention of discussing here the merits of this assertion as applied to the humanities, which are the only form of culture with which historians have really concerned themselves, but I feel that it is incorrect, or at least disputable, when extended to scientific culture.

Even before the unification of Italy, and at least as early as 1825, Italian science (for all that it was limited in scope, badly organised and deprived of resources) was characterised by strong ties with the most advanced circles in Europe. Indeed, the political difficulties caused by territorial fragmentation favoured links with the world outside Italy; not only was it at times easier for an Italian scientist to travel to Paris, London or Geneva than to Rome or Naples, but it should also be borne in mind that many were obliged to take refuge beyond the Alps from political persecution. Ottaviano Mossotti, Leopoldo Nobili and Macedonio Melloni are merely the most famous names that come to mind.

At the time of the unification of the country the modest Italian scientific world was cosmo• politan rather than provincial, full of admiration for what was being done abroad and keen to imitate French and German scientific models. One subject which was discussed obsessively in academic circles in the new Italian state was the lamentably impoverished conditions in which Italian scientific research had to be carried out, compared to the culturally and materially richer conditions to be found abroad. Throughout the second half of the century the practice of spending long periods of training at the most important European research institutions was commonplace. In Italian universities the major foreign periodicals were systematically collected wherever it was materially possible, as any historically-inclined visitor to those institutions which have preserved their own libraries will observe.

Certainly the inadequate structures of the Italian university system made it impossible for Italian researchers to attentively follow every one of the lines of research which proliferated over the closing decades of the nineteenth century, and many significant subject areas (such as the kinetic theory of gases) went untouched in Italy for long periods; this was, however,

179 Roberto Maiocchi more an effect of limited objectives and of shortages of material, human and physical resources, than the result of some kind of closed mentality.

In certain sectors, particularly the mathematical disciplines where study did not require major investment in resources, the Italian scientific culture of the early years of the twentieth century was fully up to date; it is difficult to dismiss as "provincial" a milieu which boasted figures of the standing of Tullio Levi-Civita, who explained to Einstein how to apply absolute differential calculus to general relativity, and who in 1907 was able to launch a truly international journal, Scientia, edited by another great mathematician, Federigo Enriques. Technologists too were showing keen interest in innovations, which were put to use in cutting edge achievements in areas such as the electrical industry.

Elsewhere in the early years of the new century "scientific nationalism" made its first appearances in Italian intellectual life. Drawing strength from political nationalism and from the undoubted successes attributable to research, it started to challenge the idea that Italy had anything to learn from foreign science, claiming that the low esteem in which Italian science was held by the rest of the world was largely unmerited, resulting from a misunderstanding, partly a historical accident and partly because the "foreigner" wanted it so. The proud belief grew that there was a local tradition of typically "Italic" science, characterised by realism, intuition and imagination, and in contrast with the coldly rational and idealistic "Nordic" scientific tradition, which was worth cultivating but without the need to ape the French and Germans slavishly. Antonio Garbasso and Orso Mario Corbino were among the main supporters of this concept.

The First World War encouraged a strengthening of this scientific nationalism. Events in Germany made a great impression in Italy: scientific research proved a powerful weapon in both military and economic terms, making a decisive contribution to the German capacity to run its war machine despite the Allies' blockade of raw materials. "Fare come in Germania" ("Do what the Germans do") became a slogan repeated ad nauseam: make science into a productive force, tie scientific research into industrial production in order to increase the nation's ability to make rational use of its own resources. The difficulties caused by the war had pitilessly exposed Italy's considerable dependence on foreign imports of raw materials and technologically advanced products; however, voices were raised in certain circles suggesting that with determined assistance from science, the nation would be able to escape from this dependency by developing typically Italian technical and scientific knowledge and methodologies appropriate for Italian resources, by analogy with the German model.

This attempt to bend science to the material needs of the nation required a radical change of perspective, since the links between Italian science and industry in the preceding decades had been practically non-existent, and, inevitably, discussions during the war had not led to major

180 Fascism and Italian Science Policy

organisational initiatives; the most significant were the Ufficio invenzioni e ricerche, under the direction of the mathematician Vito Volterra, and the Comitato Nazionale Scientifica-Tecnico founded in Milan by a group of industrialists and university lecturers. Both of these were later brought together under the aegis of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR).

In the immediate post-war period the debate over national resources and the need for scientific and technical practices appropriate to them continued, with particular emphasis on fuels and fertilisers. However, the economic recovery, up until the crash of 1929, was characterised by considerable foreign trade, including large-scale imports of everything that Italy was unable to produce by itself; in this climate "scientific nationalism" lost much of its edge and vigour.

It did not, however, fall completely by the wayside, and indeed fascism took it up and made it the keystone of its own conception of science. Although the clear intention and will to implement such a policy was not manifested until the 1930s, even in the preceding decade fascist culture spokesmen were quick to make the link between "fascist science" and "science in the service of the State". For fascism the "morality of science" [the title of a celebrated lecture given by Giovanni Gentile in 1923] was a matter of targeting the theoreti• cal sciences on practical applications, concentrating on those which might be of particular significance for the economic development of the nation.

The CNR, which started operations at the end of the 1920s, represented the fascist govern• ment's main institutional attempt to put into practice this hoped-for change of direction towards science applied in the national interest. Moreover, many scientists strongly supported the creation of the CNR, with the intention of using it as a means to establish a number of major national laboratories which would have access to huge resources and thus make it possible to carry out research which was impracticable in any university institute. The proponents of these national laboratories did not intend that they should necessarily be wholly dedicated to applied science. The history of the CNR up to the outbreak of war was openly characterised by tension between those who regarded it as a state body with the task of directing national science towards the needs of the nation, and those who saw it as a vehicle for a qualitative leap in their own theoretical research. The most successful studies financed by the CNR were theoretical in nature, with pride of place going to the results obtained by the group led by Enrico Fermi.

A constant topic in the debate that accompanied the slow and tortuous process of establishing and organising the CNR was the major research institutions that had already been set up in other countries, particularly those in Britain and France. However, two characteristics of the CNR distinguished it from similar institutions elsewhere in Europe and - together with its minimal funding - imposed severe restrictions on its activities.

181 Roberto Malocchi

Firstly the CNR failed to adopt an autonomous structure independent of the universities, and immediately became the target of academics who saw it as a new opportunity to obtain funding for their personal research projects, thus diverting not insubstantial resources from the projects of national interest.

Secondly the CNR's officers dedicated the modest resources which they were able to control to initiatives which succeeded in distancing Italian research circles from work being carried out elsewhere in Europe. Many of those running the CNR - particularly the chemist Nicola Parravano, the institution's vice-president and, to a great extent, de facto scientific director - had an image of Italy as a nation with an agricultural vocation, a country of sun and soil, destined to develop quite differently from the more industrialised countries, countries of coal and iron, which required a correspondingly different form of scientific research. This was a con• cept greatly in tune with the themes of "ruralism" and return to the land which were given such prominence in fascist political action, along with anti-Americanism and the crusade against "Fordism", the mass society and mechanisation - themes held dear by the literary culture of the Fascist period. Parravano's "scientific ruralism" was not mere rhetoric to suit the regime's watchwords on the ruralisation of Italian society, but was put into action in the form of tightly focused research programmes launched by the CNR in the first half of the 1930s, which laid considerable emphasis on matters concerning branches of industry with close agricultural ties.

It is clear that such a low-profile research policy was having an adverse impact on the prospects for more advanced technical and scientific work in the country, as well as distancing Italian scientists from the mainstream of European culture. Scientific nationalism was lauded beyond all reason, and the myth of "Italic supremacy" - according to which there existed some kind of international conspiracy to conceal the great truth that Italy had more or less always been the leading light in international science - was invented, backed up by a major propaganda effort.

During the period of autarchy Italian scientists were mobilised to help the nation, at first to survive the "iniquitous sanctions", and later to prepare for war. This mobilisation was essentially rhetorical and propagandistic, and failed to produce any significant results despite the warm response from scientists and technologists.

A high proportion of those working in Italian science declared themselves ready for the call, often with enthusiasm, seeing in the plans for autarchy the quintessence of scientific ration• ality. What indeed could seem more rational, it was asked, than the attempt to exploit the country's own material and intellectual resources to the full? Moreover, scientists and technologists felt their social status growing as a result of autarchy, which, it was commonly agreed, could not be achieved without the work of scientists and engineers. Unfortunately, the racial laws were to hit some of those most dedicated to the concept, particularly Italy's leading researcher into fuels, Mario Giacomo Levi.

182 Fascism and Italian Science Policy

This considerable readiness displayed by the scientific community was not matched by the government's ability to lead and organise it. It has often been said that fascism did not prepare properly for war, since it never seriously contemplated fighting. It seems to me that what is known about the history of Italian science fits quite neatly into this overall picture: fascism took no serious steps to take advantage of scientists' readiness to participate in preparations for hostilities, while the CNR, although ready to do so, never became involved in research that had any great relevance to military needs. It does not seem to me possible to sustain, as some have done, that Fascism subordinated Italian scientific research to military requirements: all the initiatives that were taken were uncoordinated and hasty, generally haphazard, and always dominated by the requirements of propaganda. Never in the history of Italy has there been an era so rich in gargantuan conferences and scientific demonstrations as the immediate pre-war years, but neither has there ever been a period where scientific results of significance were so scarce.

These years of confusion and intoxication, when Italian scientific circles were under great pressure to close in on themselves, to concentrate on problems other than those which were considered vital on the world stage, and all in all to break contact with the rest of the world, were undoubtedly a period of provincialisation of Italian culture. This needs to be recognised, but its significance should not be overstated.

Indeed, it should be borne in mind that this trend towards not allowing intellectual horizons to stray beyond the frontiers of the nation affected a significant number of people to any great degree only after 1935, and was thus not a real factor for very long. Italian research's real drama was the war itself, which cut off all scientific activity within the country, regardless of its relevance to autarchy. When Italy found itself scientifically backwards at the end of hostilities, it was primarily a result of what had happened during the war rather than before it.

It should also be borne in mind that in the second half of the 1930s there was ample scope for contacts between Italian researchers and those abroad: for example, the monumental scientific congresses were, it is true, organised primarily with propaganda in mind, but they did still serve as opportunities for meetings with the big names in world science, and much of Italian scientific production shows that these opportunities were not wasted.

Above all, it was the inability (as already noted) of fascism to organise a genuine and not merely propagandistic mobilisation of Italian science to target the goals of autarchy which left a fair number of opportunities for freely selected research, where scientific work was able to carry on with an eye to developments in Europe and America. In the final analysis, the fascist science policy might have caused a great deal more damage had it been up to the task of putting scientific autarchy into practice, and for this failing we should be grateful.

183 Roberto Malocchi

Bibliography of the Author

"Cultura e scienza nella Milano postunitaria: il dibattito sull'atomismo", Storia in Lom• bardia, 1985, pp. 35-49.

Einstein in Italia. La scienza e la filosofia italiane di fronte alla teoria della relatività, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1985.

"Fisica c filosofia nella cultura italiana dei primi due decenni del Novecento", Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana, series VI, n° 13, 1993, pp. 489-507.

"Il fascismo e Einstein" in various authors, Cultura e società negli anni del fascismo, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1986, pp. 209-219.

"Il neoidealismo italiano e la meccanica quantistica", Giornale Critico della Filosofìa Italiana, 68, 1989, pp. 78-99

"Il Politecnico e la cultura tecnico-scientifica", Museoscienza, 21, 1982, pp. 33-36.

"Il ruolo delle scienze nello sviluppo industriale italiano", in Storia d'Italia Annali 3, Einaudi, Turin, 1980, pp. 865-999.

"Ingegneri, cultura, fascismo", in // Politecnico di Milano nella storia italiana (1914-1963), issue n° 17 of the Rivista milanese di economia, 1988, pp. 205-231.

"La fisica italiana e la vittoria dell'atomismo (1890-1914)", in C. Mangione (ed.), Scienza e Filosofìa, Garzanti, Milan, 1985, pp. 697-711.

La fisica italiana in Europa da Nobili a Marconi (to be published shortly by UTET).

"La ricerca in campo elettrotecnico", in G. Mori (ed.), Storia dell'industria elettrica in Italia 1: Le origini, 1882-1914, Laterza, Rome-Bari, 1992, pp. 155-199.

"La scienza e l'industria", in Storia della società italiana, 16, Teti, Milan, 1982, pp. 323-387.

"L'attività di ricerca nel Politecnico di Milano tra le due guerre", Storia in Lombardia, 3, 1989, pp. 33-53.

"Matematici italiani di fronte alla relatività", in various authors, La matematica italiana tra le due guerre mondiali, Pitagora, Bologna, 1987, pp. 247-264.

184 Fascism and Italian Science Policy

"Meccanica quantistica e relatività a Milano negli anni trenta" in various authors, L'immagine e il mondo, Scientia, Milan, 1989, pp. 79-99.

Non solo Fermi. Il dibattito sui fondamenti della meccanica quantistica in Italia tra le due guerre, Le Lettere, Florence, 1991.

"Scienza, industria e fascismo (1923-1939)", Società e Storia, 1978, pp. 281-315.

"Scienza, tecnica e industria nell'Italia Unita", in G. Majno and C. Sicola (eds.), Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnica "Leonardo da Vinci", Itinerario Storico. Cento anni di industria, Electa Lombardia, Milan, 1992, pp. 13-17.

"Scienziati italiani e scienza nazionale (1919-1939)", in S. Soldani and G. Turi (eds.), Fare gli italiani. Scuola e cultura nell'Italiana contemporanea, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1993, voi. II, pp. 41-86.

"Università e industria in Italia tra la fine dell'Ottocento e gli inizi del Novecento. Il caso dell'elettrotecnica", in F. Minazzi (ed.), Il sapere per la società civile. Le Università Popolari nella storia d'Italia, Edizioni Università Popolare di Varese, Varese, 1994, pp. 57-78.

185

Images and Practice of Science in Post-War Italy Claudio Pogliano

In this paper I will just summarise the main conclusions of a broader work that I've recently published.' What is striking in Italian post-War culture is an evident contrast between the amount of general discussion about science, and the poor conditions in which its various branches were to develop. On the one hand, the philosophical, ideological and even literary debate on the nature of science and technology ran as an unbroken line; such a large amount of discourses is truly a peculiar constant feature. On the other hand, one cannot help observing the permanent state of bad health, or of crisis, which troubled scientific research in Italy. Scientific practice and technological innovation went on slowly, suffering from several different handicaps. It's not paradoxical to maintain that very often their best performances and achievements were possible not thanks to, but in spite of the science policies contrived by the various governments, often absent-mindedly. As a matter of fact, for the most part they shared a substantial, guilty negligence due more to cultural limits than to some conscious political choice. Periods of less indifference have been rare and very short, as if the field of scientific research in Italy was haunted by chronic indigence. In perfect continuity with the past, recent and present developments confirm the sidereal distance of the universe of science and technology from the mentality and priorities exhibited by the majority of the ruling class.

* * *

Let's go back to the past. It's well known that the fascist regime prescribed a strict self- sufficiency (the so called autarchia) both in economy and in culture. The official command didn't actually succeed in keeping the country in the dark about what was going on abroad. Dissent, rebellion and opening of credit to some foreign experiences could take place, even if limited to persecuted minorities. Anyway, after the Liberation, the Italian intellectuals often expressed a common feeling: that Fascism had forced them to a degree of abstinence tending to starvation, and that for twenty years they had survived in a rough, stifling, dogmatic environment. The period which ended in 1945 was then perceived as a dreary desert, and the immediate future as a field where to sow seeds of Utopia.

■ Cfr. Claudio Pogliano, "Le culture scientifiche e tecnologiche", in Storia dell'Italia repubblicana. La trasformazione dell'Italia: sviluppo e squilibri, vol. II/2, Einaudi, Torino, 1995, pp. 553-634.

187 Claudio Pogliano

At that time, science became one of the main ingredients of post-War Utopia. Fascism had reduced science either to an object of nationalist pride or to a faithful servant. Now, the new and free Italian society had to be built with the absolutely necessary help of scientific culture. Between 1945 and 1947 this was a leit-motiv of// Politecnico, the famous periodical directed by Elio Vittorini with a programme that aimed to empower culture (and especially scientific culture) to rule the country. Skimming through the thirty-nine issues of // Politecnico, one can read about the crisis of modem science, the theory of relativity, the impressive outcome of nuclear physics, or the disputed value of psychoanalysis. Vittorini and his friends used to blame masters and followers of the Italian neo-idealism for their philosophical presumption and their almost total ignorance of science. On the other hand, some groups of scientists rediscovered the philosophical dimension of their work and started to discuss theory and methodology as the champions of neo-positivism had taught to do twenty years before. With a certain delay, philosophy and science began talking again.

For a while, even Catholics and Marxists - the two main (and opposing) currents in post-War Italian culture - used to praise the value and the advantages of science and technology. For instance, religious belief and scientific knowledge seemed totally compatible in the cultural framework shaped by Father Agostino Gemelli, inventor and leader of Italian neo- scholasticism. He was at the head of the Pontifical Academy of Science during the papacy of Pius XII, when the doctrine of the Church brought out a curious "theological scientism". In a 1953 symposium Augusto Guzzo, a notable Catholic philosopher, said that "the extreme exactitude to which contemporary science is binding man also makes him favourably disposed towards the religious faith". Another kind of faith distinguished the followers of Marxism: in 1945 one of them, the philologist and historian Concetto Marchesi, had called Marxism "a science that is advancing through the investigation of facts and the continuous elaboration of experience". Development conceived as progress: this was the usual per• spective shared in the Fifties by the numerous intellectuals who embraced the cause of socialism and communism. In their opinion, there was no doubt that science and technology belonged to the sphere of the so called "productive forces", which sooner or later would break up the capitalist class relations. In USSR, they supposed, a wholly "new man" was being born thanks to an education system based on science. Scientists had to supply an objective knowledge "of the people for the people", that would be able to express the inexhaustible power of the experimental method, like in the case of Lysenko's soviet biology. Such would have been the wonders created by science in a society redeemed from the constraints of class-conflict.

Therefore, all through the Fifties science was magnified by many actors on the cultural scene as a benign factor of development and prosperity. As for the real practice of science, though, the defeat of fascism and the post-War breakdown of institutions had had long term consequences on research activities, which traditionally took place in the universities. After

188 Images and Practice of Science in Post-War Italy

twenty years of life, in 1945 the Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (CNR) was re-established, and Gustavo Colonnetti became its new president: a Catholic and antifascist engineer who had left during the war his teaching post and had repaired to Switzerland. A heavy and unpleasant work fell on him: with exceptional perseverance and in the most adverse conditions, he tried to rebuild a whole structure. For ten years he had several occasions to fight against what he considered the short-sighted insensibility of the political authorities, which often belonged to his own party, the Democrazia Cristiana. His concept of science was emphatic, rhetoric and religious: he maintained that after World War II, no country could rise again without the hope of intellectual eminence. He conceived the period of "reconstruction" as a gradual reconquest of the leading role which Italy had played in the past. Present poverty was no excuse. As science and technology were going to shape a new planetary order, a unique chance was given to the less advanced countries. Colonnetti used to compare the scientific and technological civilisation to a gigantic wave that either drives a country forward or sweeps it away. Between such a worshipped religion of science and what was actually going on in the first post-War decade there probably is a double relationship. On the one hand, the indexes of a general disaster were unequivocal; on the other, many illusions were nourished about what Italy could achieve, if only converted to the right cause. When scientific practice had still to re-emerge from the war abyss, it was often praised as the only way of escape.

As for information about the actual state of research in the different fields, a meeting held by the CNR in 1955 declared the impossibility of collecting and providing reliable data. Nobody knew how much money the universities were spending, how the distribution of resources occurred, in what proportions the government and the industries respectively contributed, where the dynamic or weak sectors were located. In order to organise all those scattered energies, the idea of a special Ministry was then advanced for the first time: Colonnetti defined it a Ministry for the "future of the nation". The proposal was welcomed by the left-wing parties and the Trade Unions, that used to blame the government's inertia and to ask for more investments in scientific research. Furthermore, Socialists and Communists charged Italian capitalism with surviving on foreign inventions and patents, and with being unsuited to foster local take-offs. According to them, the same backwardness was pervading culture and society: no wonder that the scientific education was lacking in schools, and that the connection among science, technology, industry and economy had hardly been perceived until then. In short, the Italian political "clan" had not even realised that a "science policy" should exist, and also the academics were mostly deaf to it.

Among the different disciplines, we have a good deal of historical information about physics; this is understandable if one recalls what the Roman school and its ramifications had represented before the 1938 intellectual diaspora. In 1949 Enrico Fermi returned from the United States, warmly welcomed at the congress of the Italian physicists as the man who had created energy from the atom, a fundamental innovation with possible civilian and social

189 Claudio Pogliano applications. However, the dominant fear still came from the military use of nuclear power, almost an obsession nurtured by the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the time, as never before, the civilised world became aware that its very destiny depended on the course taken by science and technology. While this kind of consciousness was spreading over the West countries, Italian physicists resumed their scientific journey and devoted themselves especially to the study of elementary particles and cosmic rays. In 1951 the INFN (National Institute of Nuclear Physics) was founded, followed by the CNRN (National Committee for Nuclear Research); three years later the construction of the first synchrotron started near Frascati. In 1954, moreover, the project of a European laboratory (CERN) was sanctioned, and its secretariat committed to Edoardo Arnaldi, charged with the supervision of the works in Geneva. There, in August 1955 the first UN conference on nuclear energy aroused hopeful and optimistic feelings. 1400 people from 73 countries attended the meeting, that expressed the trust both in future improvements in international relations and in the unlimited potential of the atom for energy production. The very scarce contribution given by Italy to the Geneva conference provoked a lot of domestic discussions and made clear that the responsibility was to be attributed more to the political and industrial élites than to the scientific one: the industrialised world was undergoing a major revolution that passed almost unnoticed to the Italian statesmen, and most of the private industry seemed unable to adjust itself to the new international surroundings. As an exception, we can mention the good relationship established between scientific research and industry in the field of chemistry. For a couple of years Giulio Natta, 1963 Nobel Prize, had visited chemical industries throughout the United States. Back to Italy, he tried to introduce a new and more efficient pattern of work, making arrangements for the Politecnico of Milan and the Montecatini to collaborate. In few years his polymers would cover Italy with plastic materials.

During the short period separating the reconstruction of the country from its modernisation, some signs of change were more often perceived by people who had nothing to do with the political power, the university system or other sacred places of knowledge. If at that time Elio Vittorini and his friends were thinking of a possible hybridisation between literature and science, in 1953 the engineer and poet Leonardo Sinisgalli began to publish Civiltà delle macchine, an important periodical that aimed at exploring the borderland and the overlaps of art and science. The reign of economic interest and profit - technology, industry, market, advertising etc. - could be fertilised by the metaphors of culture, and the new "machines" could make life easier, leaving more space for leisure and imagination. Civiltà delle macchine was also one of the first publications in Italy where the word "cybernetics" was pronounced and its meaning fully explained: among the new post-War machines there was one, the computer, that could be compared to an evolutive organism and that would change the world. Very few people in the Fifties dared criticise the advancement of science and technology: one of them, Pierpaolo Pasolini, invited the Communist Party to oppose the ruthless and forced march of neocapitalism, which would generate both economic development and social

190 Images and Practice of Science in Post-War Italy

disruption. But the prevalent opinion was expressed in 1958 by the philosopher Giulio Preti, who talked about an irresistible "seduction of science" running through the history of Western civilisation, and moulding its own characters.

* * *

From the political point of view, 1960 stands as a turning point in the history of republican Italy, because of the shift to a new context where the Christian Democrats entered into a government alliance with the Socialist Party. After a decade of laisser-faire, the Italian economic system was gradually tending towards some kind of political planning. In the background of the "plan" perspective championed by many economists, there was some space for the idea that scientific research had to be programmed as well. While the so called mira• colo economico was moving forward, the marvels of automation, as they were seen in the American context, mesmerised Italy. However, the effects of neocapitalism, which successfully distinguished itself by investing in technological innovation, were quite puzzling. Around 1960, some sparkling symbols of progress appeared on the scene: motorization, highways, refrigerators and TV sets. But other contrasting elements were undeniable: the high rate of illiteracy, bad schools, the discredit of public administration, paltry investments in R&D.

A symptom of change was represented in 1963 by the law which tried to co-ordinate research activities and to adjust structure and functions of CNR. Mentor of that reform was the phy• sicist Giovanni Polvani, who signed the first report of the renewed CNR: a sort of cahier de doléances, where scientific research was described as quantitatively scarce, badly controlled and worse distributed, lacking in many sectors and redundant in others, wanting in inter• national reputation and poorly paid. Moreover, Polvani still lamented the incomplete infor• mation available and proposed to obviate the difficulty by founding a register of the research bodies. In the meantime, the ghost of a special Ministry for Scientific Research appeared again. For many years that office without a portfolio was the subject of irony, since the relative, necessary legislative measures failed to be taken.

The coming of "big science", marked by an exponential growth process, was received with a sort of inferiority complex by the national scientific community, and the nightmare of a technological gap obsessed the country throughout the Sixties. The gap had its roots in the international division of labour, which assigned to Italy the role of importer of energy and technology. For a while, the so called "brain drain" phenomenon became a debated question in Italy too. Some authors explained it as an aspect of the increasing economic integration within the Western industrial world: whereas Europe trained first rate specialists in many fields, without providing them with adequate work opportunities, the USA were suffering from a shortage of high level skilled labour. No wonder that the American research market was attracting more and more people, otherwise destined to unemployment, or to some job unsuited to their abilities.

191 Claudio Pogliano

Many conflicting opinions were also expressed on how to stimulate industrial research, but ten years after the miracolo the experts had to admit that Italian economy was still far from developing thanks to the excellence of innovating sectors. Between 1963 and 1971 the State investments in research grew from 0.4% up to 1 % of home product, but that increase seemed to have worsened the structural defects, wasting public money. In 1969 a OCDE report on science policy dramatically disclosed that Italy was "loin derrière plusieurs pays industriel• lement développés", and that governmental powers didn't realise the paramount importance of R&D. Judging by numeric standards only, one could have thought of Italy as a Mecca of science: two thousand university institutes, sixty independent centres, leaving out the partnership in European organisations, such as Euratom and CERN. Nevertheless the system showed many qualitative limits and a constant divergence between aims and results. During the period 1970-1975 Italy was the country within the European community with the lowest increase in investments for research: 2.8% in comparison with an average growth of 10.3%. Once again, mainly due to the stagflation of the Seventies, Italian society was suffering from more than a flaw. Five different bills were brought before Parliament in order to reorganise the national science system, but they were not discussed and the custom of delaying and deferring decisions prevailed once again; the only measure taken consisted in including all the public research bodies in the so called parastato, an ambiguous category subjected to the ordinary rules of State bureaucracy.

After 1960, another change gradually appeared in the public perception of science: little by little, the previous infatuation with its effects withdrew, while different forms of criticism were multiplying. Nevertheless, in 1961 the hundredth anniversary of the Italian unification was celebrated in Turin, an industrial town, with a great exhibition focusing upon the recent achievements of science and technology. Italy had changed a lot and was still rapidly changing; that same year one of the most subtle minds we've had, Italo Calvino, wrote about an unexpected, forthcoming belle époque, a period of total industrialisation and automation, and invited to face the challenge of such a labyrinthic complexity. He answered in that way to the provocation launched by Vittorini from the pages of the journal Menabò: to find out whether and how the "new things" brought by the last indus• trial revolution were having an adequate response in terms of knowledge and of imagi• nation. Italian culture, according to Vittorini, was not aware of the "grand and terrible transformation" that was going on: "the industrial world, having replaced the natural one by man's will, is still a world of which we do not have a mastery, and that is taking pos• session of us exactly like the natural did". The same route was then taken by Umberto Eco, trying to convince the left wing intellectuality that Marxism had to be profoundly revised and enriched with other research techniques. In 1964 he maintained that, in front of the rising universe endowed with life by the new mass media, neither the apocalittici nor the integrati were right: one had instead to refuse the option between an irresponsible exal• tation and a moralistic/reactionary deprecation.

192 Images and Practice of Science in Post-War Italy

Unfortunately, Eco's suggestion was not followed and the most lively Italian Marxist culture exposed itself to many troubles choosing a romantic attitude in which neocapitalism appeared as an already perfectly established reality, as a sort of dictatorship held by scientific ration• ality. Consequently, science and technology lost their status as beneficial productive forces, and ended up resembling the tools of a devilish plot. Also in 1964, Snow's pamphlet on the "two cultures" was translated, becoming the source of numberless (and often useless) debates, while three years later the Congress of the Italian philosophers in Pisa was, not accidentally, devoted to "Man and the Machine". Speakers who were afraid that automata would acquire an independent life clashed with the supporters of increased mechanisation. Among the latter, Vittorio Somenzi had just published an anthology including essays on cybernetics, computer science and neurosciences by authors such as Wiener, von Neumann, Turing, Sherrington, Ryle, Shannon etc., who were almost unknown to the Italian public. Anyhow, science as a subject settled in the middle of the scene, sometimes to be seriously scrutinised, but more often just to become the target-shooting of some ideological kind of resentment.

Many examples could be given of such an ideological turn against science in the late Sixties. One of the major impulse came from the Frankfurt School (Adorno and Hork• heimer), with all its stressing of the barbarity linked to the alleged advent of technocracy. The diffusion of the Marcusian credo deeply affected a youthful opposition who was in search of new beliefs. As elsewhere, Italian counter-culture made offerings at the altar of anti-science, and was on bad terms with any form of authority as well as with the techno• logical grip on society. However, the generational rebellion was widely justified by the fact that economic and social change had not been matched by an implementation of institu• tional and political reforms. In a word, the expectations aroused by the new centre-left governments had been bitterly disappointed.

In 1968 some "citizens of the world" - such was their own self-definition - gathered at the Accademia dei Lincei and founded the Club of Rome: they were worrying about the "limits to growth" and the uncertain future of our planet. The first Report was committed to MIT and sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation; it declared that the beginning of the techno• logical age and the shaping of a new global complex system would require a general revision of old attitudes and behaviours. As the natural resources of the earth were finite, the Faustian dream had to be wisely revisited and restrained.

Anti-science meant, according to Stephen Toulmin who coined the term in 1972, several charges: the blame of an alleged inhumanity of science, the defence of a subjectivity that only literature, fine arts, and music could revenge, the promotion of values (intuition, fantasy, creativity) that science would ignore, the revaluation of something called "quality" and "concrete" over the "quantity" and the "abstract". Relations and terms which were undeter• mined and vague, but nevertheless largely used with an apodictic frivolity. It's also worth

193 Claudio Pogliano noticing that the discredit of science was contemporaneous to a revival of the occultism supported by the mass media which gave it the traits of a powerful industry of superstition.

In 1975 Leonardo Sciascia wrote a brief portrait of the physicist Ettore Majorana, who had mysteriously disappeared, where he suggested that, having guessed something atrocious under the surface of nuclear physics, Majorana had preferred to die, caught by a religious dismay that sooner or later would hit the whole science. Sciascia's prophecy was of course quite visionary, and other Italian writers were working at that time in a very different man• ner: think of Calvino's experiments with his Oulipo friends in Paris, or of the "enlighten• ment" spirit in Primo Levi's narrative. As a matter of fact, the scientific progress which frightened some people didn't prevent the fact that 76% of the Italian population was still lacking a junior high school certificate and that one third of it had not even finished primary school. It's a little bit ironic that in November 1979 was the new pope John Paul II to defend the value of science with a speech delivered for the hundredth anniversary of Einstein's birth. According to him, science has a particular value because of its capacity of discovering truths written by God's hand. That speech also initiated a rehabilitation process in favour of Galileo that was to end thirteen years later with an imposing ceremony in the Vatican.

In Karol Wojtyla's mind, science and religion were not to fight each other any more: the only condition he posed was the necessary superiority of ethics over all other factors, of "spirit" over "matter". In general, the majority of Italian philosophers was less friendly towards science, thinking in hermeneutic rather than epistemic terms. Although philosophy of science had not been neglected, the distance between the two activities - philosophy and science - was still very great. A 1986 inquiry made it clear that Italian philosophy was very uncertain about its own role and was haunted by the spectre of unemployment. As the Byzantine or the Turkish, the philosophical empire had been gradually deprived of its richest provinces by the conquering and victorious armies of science. Now, its survivors feared a sad future for themselves. What's the use of philosophy today? The question is still unanswered, not only in Italy, but in Italy with a special severity as philosophy had enjoyed a very prominent position throughout our century.

* * *

In the meantime, the economic crisis of the Seventies revealed all the weak points of a pro• ductive system which was based more on low prime costs than on technical modernisation. In 1980 this was the appraisal of Ernesto Quagliariello, CNR president, who hoped that the reopening of an expansive economic cycle would rely on new factors, linked to the virtuous action of science and technology. Needless to say, all expectations were going to be disappointed, and other forms of action, not properly lawful, as we now well know, would dominate. In spite of any cliché, Italy was (and still is) a country almost incapable of inventing new technical devices, obstinately tempted to survive on the inventions of others.

194 Images and Practice of Science in Post-War Italy

The hypothesis of a Ministry endowed with few appropriate instruments emerged in 1984, and finally in 1989 a law was passed which ended a pluridecennial gestation. At last the Ministry formally established in 1962 got out of its institutional limbo and took its stand in the middle of a new control system. Since the necessity of the connection between university, industry and research was universally accepted, the creation of the new Ministry arouse a great interest in the topic. But the ferment of the 1989 law was just a beginning, a lot of work remained to be done, and it was only partially carried out.

Italy was then falling into a period of economic recession, having also to face the traumatic discovery of an underground world of illegality and corruption. More than twenty years after the first report, in June 1990 four OCDE observers explored again the continent of Italian science. Their main remark was about the incongruity of a considerable rate of economic development coupled with a very feeble growth in research activities. If in 1989 European community countries had spent an average of 2.5% of home product, having 4.9 employees on each thousand working units, the Italian percentage didn't exceed 1.29% and the number of researchers stopped at 2.7. The aim of doubling those numbers before 2000 would have required an outstanding annual increment of expenses, in contrast with the effort of reducing a tremendous State deficit. Many suggestions were given by the OCDE examiners, who urged to realise that "desperate ills demand desperate remedies". The industrial system deserved their most severe criticism: a productive structure overcharged in traditional sectors, reluctant to engage in innovating research.

It's true that the Eighties also witnessed some meaningful events, like the foundation of scientific and technological parks, the birth of new research bodies, the enlargement of the public interest in science. Some disciplinary areas preserved their international reputation, as shown in a 1993 survey on Italy published by "Physics World". However, glancing at our present, we can't help noticing how neglected the question is in the agenda of an over- advertised and grotesque "second Italian Republic". In 1994 Luigi Rossi Bernardi, a former president of CNR, listed the figures concerning the poor state of the Italian S&T system, exposed to risk of an irreversible decay. A triennial Plan for research was then drawn up: an analytic, purposive document which tried to be the opposite of a "book of dreams". Given the precarious financial situation, it foresaw to "responsibly" limit the increment of expenses, and to reach only 1.6% of the home product in 1996. In conclusion, one can only wish that the process of European unification will be able to heal vices and diseases which have distressed post-War Italy for half a century. To say the truth, though, present symptoms are not inducing any hope in a prompt recovery.

195

Beyond the Great Divide: Transformations of Science and Its Context in World War IP Andrew Pickering

This essay was prepared for a conference session on "theory". Contributors were asked to think about how science is affected by its context, about factors internal and external to science, and about whether we should imagine that external, social, factors can influence the contents of scientific knowledge. No doubt these are often productive questions to think about, but I want to challenge the assumptions that lie behind them.1 Especially I want to dispute the idea that there is some constant, more-or-less autonomous, thing that we can unproblematically identify as science, and which is acted upon from the outside. I also want to suggest that we should not fix our gaze too narrowly on scientific knowledge as the target of our analyses. My feeling is that in the historical episodes that are most revealing of the rela• tions between science and power the situation is more complex and fascinating than the stan• dard problematic suggests, in at least the following ways:

- the very nature of science is subject to transformation in its interactions with the extra- scientific world;

- the boundaries between science and its context are liable to topological reconfiguration;

- the nature of the context, that which is traditionally supposed to influence science, is itself at stake in its interaction with science.

Furthermore these changes can be reciprocally coupled to one another: in close encounters between science and power both can be transformed in a single process - and, if one's aim is to reflect on science policy, it is well to recognise this.2

Thus my agenda. Now I turn to a historical example that can illustrate what is on my mind. It concerns relationships established between scientific and military enterprise in World War II, and I should note in advance that I am going to concentrate on developments in the United

' Some parts of this paper have appeared in Pickering A. (1995a) and in Pickering A. (1995b). ' See Shapin (1992) for the evolution of the internal/external debate in science studies. 2 For further developments of the points just made, see Pickering (1995a, forthcoming a, b).

197 Andrew Pickering

States rather than Europe. Undoubtedly one could tell a similar story about science and its context in Europe and especially in Britain, though there are important differences too, but I focus on the US because I know more about wartime initiatives there and because they proved exemplary for subsequent developments in Europe (and around the world).3

I can start by defining a baseline against which we can measure subsequent transformations of science and its context, meaning here the US military machine.4 Before WWII science and the military in the US were more or less decoupled: there was a well defined boundary between the two, across which there was little interaction, in either direction. The armed services did have their own technical bureaux, but their effectiveness was circumscribed by, as Kevies (1987, p. 290) puts it, "small budgets, lack of interservice cooperation, and limited contacts with civilian science." This, then, was a situation in which the standard image of science as a quasi-autonomous institution, perhaps subject to some external influences, seems appropriate. In the 18 months before the US entered the war in December 1941, however, things began to change. Interestingly enough, the impetus for change came not from any external influence but from civilian scientists who felt that they had more to contribute to the war effort than the military recognised, and the early institutional vehicles of change were first the National Defence Research Committee (NDRC) and then the more powerful Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). These novel social formations were primarily run by scientists, but they included a military presence as well, and a point I want immediately to stress is that their establishment amounted to a transfor• mation of the boundary between science and its context. Each, as it were, opened itself to the other, and the NDRC and OSRD were loci of fusion of science with the military. At these loci, then, science had ceased to be something upon which an external context acted; science and its context had instead become one thing.

3 A historical comparison of developments in Britain and the US in WWII would be interesting and instructive but, as far as I can ascertain, the British historical literature is inadequate to make the exercise readily possible (there is, for example, no counterpart in British history to Kevies' history of the US physics community). Tentatively and crudely, the key difference that strikes me concerns relations between science and the state in the years between WWI and WWII. In the US, scientific- military links set up in WWI were more or less dismantled in the interwar years (Kevies 1987), and this appears to have encouraged the WWII mobilisation in situ of scientists in the universities. Thus WWII saw a transformation of the US universities which prepared them, in obvious ways, to foster wartime developments (for example, the growth of big science) in the postwar years. In Britain, in contrast, science-military relations appear to have been relatively robust in the interwar period, with scientists working at several significant military research establishments. Perhaps as a result of this, the WWII mobilisation of scientists in Britain seems to have been significantly centred on such establishments, while the universities went largely unaffected. British academic structures, therefore, did not adapt to WWII developments in science, and it is tempting to speculate that this had significant consequences in the postwar period. (I thank Paul Forman and, especially, David Edgerton for illuminating discussions on the above; see also Edgerton 1991).

4 Pickering (1995a) develops the following story at greater length.

198 Beyond the Great Divide: Transformations of Science and Its Context in World War II

What did these new scientific/military institutions do? One of the first tasks undertaken by the NDRC was that of surveillance, namely a survey-mapping of the contemporary scientific resources of the US (Kevies, p. 298). This mapping was not undertaken for its own sake; instead it generated an archive (as Foucault 1972 used the term) on which the NDRC and OSRD could act. And the action took the form of a kind of tuning of the technical practice and performativity of science as a macroactor, via the letting of research contracts and the establishment of new laboratories.5 To see how this worked, think of the most successful of the new scientific institutions established by the NDRC, the Radiation Laboratory set up at MIT for research and development on radar technologies - the Rad Lab as it was known. Scientific practice at the Rad Lab was tuned and aligned with military enteiprise in several senses. First, it was oriented to specific objects (power sources for radar sets, etc.) that were of no special interest to science (in its prewar evolution) but that were valued for their peculiar performativity.6 Second, scientific practice around these objects was organised in the then- novel form that we now call big science, characterised by the formation of mission-oriented, hierarchically organised, interdisciplinary teams of scientists, engineers and technicians. There is a third point in my list, but I can note already that this orientation to material objects and the elaboration of the big science work-style amounted to a transformation of the inner substance of science itself - "science" as manifested at the Rad Lab was a different form of practice from "science" in its prewar US (or European) incarnations. This is our first instance of the idea mentioned earlier, that the very nature of science is at stake in its encounters with power - and note that this change did not take place primarily at the level of knowledge production, though it seems no less interesting or important for that.

Now for my third remark on the early history of the Rad Lab. The tuning of scientific practice in its alignment with the military was more precise than so far mentioned. The NDRC and OSRD could let contracts to encourage scientists to work on devices judged to have military potential, but the effort was in vain if such devices did not, in fact, circulate from the wartime labs into military use. And such circulation was intrinsically problematic. For instance, the Rad Lab initially focused upon the development of an aircraft detection radar system called the AI-10, but the services declined to put this system to use. Eventually, however, the Lab switched its attention to antisubmarine warfare (ASW) in the ASV (Air to Surface Vessel) project, and the navy agreed to try these sets out - thus guaranteeing the future of the Rad Lab itself (Kevies, pp. 304-5). Again it is worth making some comments here. First, as just stated, this is an example of the detailed tuning of the material practice of science in relation to its context. Second, we have here not so much of an influence upon science from its context but, actually, a transformation of science organised around the

5 For more on "tuning" and its relation to what I call the "mangle of practice", see Pickering (1995b). 6 See Forman ( 1987) on the distinctive wartime and postwar turn to objects and technique.

199 Andrew Pickering establishment of a flow going in the opposite direction, a material flow from science into the military. And third, we can see here the beginning of a reciprocal transformation of science and its context. In an obvious way, military practice was itself transformed towards its modern technoscientific form by the introduction of radar technology into military operations. In its wartime alliance with science, then, the military started to become something different from what it had traditionally been, in one and the same process as science also became something new. This is what I referred to before as the reciprocal coupling of science and its context, of science and power.

Back to my story. With ASV and other wartime successes, in radar and elsewhere, the scientists began to press for a more intimate engagement in military affairs. Their argument was that they should be allowed to make their own assessment of military needs, and that they should also be allowed more involvement in the conduct of military operations than that of simple purveyors of equipment. At a high level of authority, the first objective was initially met in the establishment in April 1942 of the Joint Committee on New Weapons and Equipment (JNW), composed of a rear admiral, a brigadier general and, as chair, a civilian scientist (Vannevar Bush, the head of the OSRD) (Kevies, p. 309). Like the NDRC and OSRD, the JNW amounted to a further breach in the boundaries around science and the military, and a further site of fusion. Unlike the earlier breaching institutions, however, the JNW was symmetric in that it was intended as a two-way window, a double panopticon, through which scientists could scan the military for problems that they might hope to address, while military men could scan science for resources they would like to see developed.

The establishment of the JNW thus intensified the reciprocal coupling of science and the military at the highest levels of authority, but even before its creation scientists were pressing for a closer engagement in the day to day conduct of military affairs. As Philip Morse put it, "Of course, Bush and Compton and Conant, who were running NDRC, were in touch with the highest military authorities and were undoubtedly contributing to the overall [military] plans. But there must be [a] need for mathematicians and theoretical physicists to work at lower command levels, to forge multiple links between new technology and military requirements" (Morse 1977, pp. 170-71). This desire led to the construction of a whole new science that became known as operations research (OR). And, noting that, in contrast to the traditional image, it is only at this comparatively late stage of the game that knowledge enters the story, I now want to add some detail on the history of OR. My text is the autobiography of Philip Morse (1977), the key figure in the development of OR in the US during WWII and one of the leading proselytisers and organisers in the world-wide spread of OR after the war.

OR was bom in Britain and, as its name suggests, had initially to do with the engagement of scientists in the planning and evaluation of military operations, especially as these involved the

200 Beyond the Great Divide: Transformations of Science and Its Context in World War II

new technoscientific hardware we have been discussing, radar. Rather than review the British experience, though, I will pick up the story in its transplantation to America.7 In early 1942, the US Navy established an operational Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW) Unit, whose chief invited Philip Morse to set up an OR group to be attached to the Unit. Morse agreed, and by the end of 1942, he had assembled a thirty man multidisciplinary team largely made up of physicists and mathematicians (Morse, p. 183) - the ASW OR Group, or ASWORG.

Before I talk about what this group did, I want to comment on the group's social location. On the one hand, the members of ASWORG remained civilians. They were paid by the NDRC through a contract with Columbia University. But, on the other, ASWORG was nevertheless lodged within the Navy, "imbedded in a military staff" (p. 183). The Navy made a space for the civilian scientists within its institutional body and, as I would say, enfolded the scientists, wrapping itself around them, in a process aimed at optimising military performativity. At this point, then, science became internal to military enterprise. This assertion can be taken in a quite literal sense: from August 1942 onwards, ASWORG was housed in the Navy Building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. And one can think about this enfolding of science by the military in a social/technical as well as a geographical sense: ASWORG was given access both to secret Naval information and to the command of ASW itself, and it was ordered "to work solely for the Navy and to disclose no information even to NDRC except when specifically authorised by the Navy" (p. 183). Here, then, we can see that the enfolding of OR scientists by the military constituted a much more intimate and detailed coupling of science and the military than that achieved at the Rad Lab or the various sites of fusion so far described - as Morse later remarked, "we were into the Navy more deeply than anyone had thought possible for civilians, and I felt we could penetrate more deeply still" (p. 187). This was an unprecedented evolutionary development in US scientific and military history and one that is iconic of the complex topological transforma• tions of the boundary between science and its context that 1 am trying to thematise. With ASWORG enfolded by the navy, we have left the simple image of science as an autonomous entity subject to external influences a long way behind.

But now, what did the OR scientists of ASWORG do? The difficulties in giving any closed definition of OR are well known, so here I will describe briefly ASWORG's first major project and then generalise from that. When Morse and his team arrived in Washington they "were shown a room full of reports of all actions by or against enemy submarines, real or imagined" (p. 177), and, after some thought, they decided that they would try to exploit this archive in thinking about airborne antisubmarine warfare. Essentially they drew upon

7 For more on OR in Britain as well as the US, and access to the canonical literature, see Fortun and Schweber (1993) and Waring (1995).

201 Andrew Pickering physical and engineering knowledge to construct a mathematical model of submarine searches, normalised the model to operational and test-stand data, and then varied the parameters at the disposal of the military (search altitudes and patterns) etc., to determine the optimum tactics for finding U-boats given available resources. This I take to be a typical WWII OR exercise, and, to generalise, let me just say that it fits very nicely with Thomas Pynchon's suggestion in his novel Gravity's Rainbow (1975, p. 49) that we might "consider the war as a laboratory." If you get the hang of Pynchon's suggestion, I think you pretty much have the hang of early OR, and I now want to make some remarks on that work.

OR, it seems to me, marks a discontinuity in the substance of science. The development of OR exemplifies once more the transformation of the inner substance of science in its intersection with power that I mentioned before, and this in four senses. First, as a new science, OR marked an incremental addition to the overall range of science. More strikingly, second, OR lived and grew in a quite novel social environment: that of civilian scientists enfolded within the military body. Here, therefore, the change in the substance of science was again reciprocally coupled to transformations in the social boundaries around science. Third, OR exemplified, at another level, the shift towards performativity already registered in science at the Rad Lab. OR, unlike the disciplines on which it drew, cared little for ontological explorations - it did not attempt to go behind the scenes and find structures underlying surface phenomena. Instead it took the world as it found it, and tried to optimise performances - here military ones - within that world. And fourth, inasmuch as OR did presuppose an ontology, it was a cyborg ontology: again in contrast with the traditional natural and social sciences, OR scientists thought about hybrid combinations of men and machines - planes, pilots, radar operators, radar sets, submarines, chains of command - and tried to optimise the conjoint performance of both within the frame of military operations. In all of these ways, then, what science was changed in its WWII intersection with the military.

Most of my points have now been made, but I want to take the story of OR a little further to reinforce them. It needs to be noted, for example, that ASWORG found the initial operational archive unsatisfactory: for obvious reasons, they did not trust the data. And ASWORG therefore contrived to circulate representatives through the operational HQs of the US navy. This circulation constituted a further intensification of the enfolding of science by the military. It also had further consequences for the nature of scientific and military practices. On the one hand, ASWORG's field representatives reported back to Washington ASWORG on observed operational deficiencies in radar as performative hardware, whence the news was propagated out of the military body back to the Rad Lab, where it set in train further detailed reformations of scientific practice, which in turn intensified the coupling of science to the military via the flow of objects, along the lines discussed earlier. On the other hand, by improving the overall data collection exercise, the scientists in the field helped to constitute the kind of operational archive in which improved quantitative calculations and

202 Beyond the Great Divide: Transformations of Science and Its Context in World War II optimisations could be performed. And these calculations fed back into a detailed tuning and optimisation of military tactics, a further technoscientific transformation of the inner military practices of war-fighting, precisely analogous to the earlier transformations of the inner practice of science at the Rad Lab.

That is far as I need to take the historical story of science and the military in WWII here. To sum up the story as I have told it, I want to emphasise that it is a story of specific changes in the nature of scientific and military enterprise: neither emerged from WWII the same as it was before. Science came to include object-oriented, multidisciplinary, big science, and new cyborg sciences, of which OR was the first and most prominent example; military practice shifted in a technoscientific direction, oriented around new devices like radar sets, and precisely configured along lines suggested by OR; the boundaries between science and the military were themselves reshaped in a series of openings, fusions and enfoldings; and all of these transformations were reciprocally coupled by flows of objects and personnel. These complex and interrelated shifts in science and its context, I need hardly repeat, are a far cry from the traditional image with which I began, of science as a quasi-autonomous institution subject to external influences that may or may not affect the trajectory of scientific knowledge production. It is clear that the WWII intersection of science with the military did have consequences for knowledge production, as in the emergence of new sciences like OR, but it should also be evident that the material, social and conceptual consequences for both science and its context went far beyond the domain of knowledge and largely escape the traditional image.

I close with some general remarks, largely in response to enlightening questions received from Paul Forman while I was writing this paper. It might be said that the material, social and conceptual transformations that I have been describing here are interesting, but that they are not transformations of science. The idea would be that science has an unchanging essence, exemplified in, say, the works of Newton and Einstein, and which, by definition, is largely immune to social context. This line of thought is familiar enough, and hangs together with the traditional problematic of internal and external factors, but I want to resist it. Speaking pragmatically, I would say that if one is interested in relations between science and power, then episodes like the one I have been talking about are precisely those which should command oui- attention. Big science, operations research and its relatives, the technoscientification of warfare are the things that we should be worrying about, and disputes about the essence of science - about what is science and what is not - are simply distractions from the task.

There is also a less straightforward, but conceivably more important, route to the same conclusion, which goes as follows. Perhaps what went on at the MIT Rad Lab during WWII was not strictly speaking science. But certainly developments there constituted the material, conceptual and social base from which much that we are inclined to call real science

203 Andrew Pickering emerged.8 Likewise, perhaps wartime operations research hardly deserves to be called a science, but in a recent scholarly article a mathematician describes OR (in its subsequent evolution) as "the oldest properly constituted formal science" (Franklin 1994, p. 514). There is, I suspect, an antiessentialist moral waiting to be drawn here. To put it crudely, I suggest that we should take the situation that obtained in WWII as typical, inasmuch as the very substance and boundaries of science were unclear and murky, subject to violent fluctuation in relation to strong couplings to an extrascientific field. And, conversely, we should see quasi-autonomous fields of science, only weakly coupled to some external context, as temporary achievements in relation to that typical situation, and as requiring special explanation, rather than as exemplifying a norm from which departures can be measured or criticised. This, in the end, is why I think that the problematic of internal and external factors needs to be transcended, and why what we need instead is a "histoiy of agency" (Pickering 1997, forthcoming a, b).

8 As Forman (1987), Galison (1988), Schweber (1986, 1989, 1992), and others have shown for post• war physics.

204 Beyond the Great Divide: Transformations of Science and Its Context in World War II

Bibliography

Edgerton D., "Liberal Militarism and the British State", New Left Review, n° 185, 1991, pp. 138-69.

Forman P., "Behind Quantum Electronics: National Security as Basis for Physical Research in the United States, 1940-1960", Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, n° 18, 1987, pp. 149-229.

Fortun M. and Schweber S.S., "Scientists and the Legacy of World War II: The Case of Operations Research," Social Studies of Science, n° 23, 1993, pp. 595-642.

Foucault M., The Archaeology of Knowledge, Pantheon, New York, 1972.

Franklin J., "The Formal Sciences Discover the Philosophers' Stone", Studies in Histoiy and Philosophy of Science, n° 25, 1994, pp. 513-33.

Galison P., "Physics between War and Peace", in E. Mendelsohn, M.R. Smith and P. Weingart (eds.), Science, Technology and the Military. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1988. pp. 47-86.

Kevies D.J., The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA), 1987.

Morse P.M.. In at the Beginnings: A Physicist's Life, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA), 1977.

Pickering Α., "Cyborg History and the World War II Regime", Perspectives on Science, n°3, 1995 (a), pp. 1-48.

Pickering Α., The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995(b).

Pickering Α., "History of Economics and the History of Agency", in J. Henderson (ed.), The State of the History of Economics: Proceedings of the History of Economics Society, Routledge, London, 1997, pp. 6-18.

Pickering Α., "Science as Alchemy", to appear in Clifford Geertz, Joan Scott and Michael Walzer (eds.), 25 Years: Social Science & Social Change, Russell Sage Foundation/Princeton University Press, forthcoming (a).

205 Andrew Pickering

Pickering, Α., "The Alchemical Wedding of Science and Industry: Synthetic Dyes and Social Theory", forthcoming (b).

PynchonT, Gravity's Rainbow, Picador, London, 1975.

Schweber S.S., "The Empiricist Temper Regnant: Theoretical Physics in the United States 1920- 1950", Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, n° 17, 1986, pp. 55-98.

Schweber S.S., "Some Reflections on the History of Particle Physics in the 1950s", in L.M. Brown, M. Dresden and L. Hoddeson (eds.), Pions to Quarks: Particle Physics in the 1950s, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 668-693.

Schweber S.S., "Big Science in Context: Cornell and MIT", in P. Galison and B. Hevly (eds.), Big Science, Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, 1992, pp. 149-83.

Shapin S., "Discipline and Bounding: The History and Sociology of Science as Seen through the Externalism-Intemalism Debate", History of Science, n° 30, 1992, pp. 333-69.

Waring S.P., "Cold Calculus: The Cold War and Operations Research", Radical History Review, n° 63, 1995, pp. 28-51.

206 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s » David Edgerton

In 1960 Great Britain was, without doubt, the scientific and technological powerhouse of Western Europe: research and development (R&D) spending, whether industrially-funded, or government funded, was significantly higher than in any capitalist country other than the USA. However, the rate of growth of the British economy was low. Intellectuals complained that Britain was dominated by the "establishment", a "traditional culture", it was a "stagnant society", the "sick man of Europe".2 There was an implication in this literature that Britain underspent on science and technology. It is significant, however, that critics contrasted Britain only with the USA and the USSR.1 As is well known, this image of the British élite as traditional, backward and antiscientific, and of a Britain deficient in science and technology was picked up by the opposition Labour Party and developed as a central theme

1 This article has already been published in Twentieth Century British History, vol. 7, n° 1, 1996, pp. 53-82. It presents some results of an ESRC-funded research project undertaken at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester between 1989 and 1992. I am grateful to Richard Coopey and James Small, who both worked on the project, ESRC Award No Y307 25 3002. Other publications derived from the project include: R. Coopey, "The White Heat of Scientific Revolution", Contemporary Record, 5/1, 1991, pp. 115-27; R. Coopey, "Industrial Policy in the White Heat of the Scientific Revolution", in R. Coopey, S. Fielding and N. Tiratsoo (eds.), 77(6- Wilson Years, Pinter, London, 1993; R. Coopey, "Restructuring Civil and Military Science and Tech• nology: the Ministry of Technology in the 1960s" in R. Coopey, G. Spinardi and M. Utlley (eds.), Defence Science and Technology: Adjusting to Change, Harwood, London, 1993; David Edgerton, "Liberal Militarism and the British State", New Left Review, n. 185, 1991, pp. 138-69; and id., England and the Aeroplane: An Essay on a Militant and Technological Nation, Macmillan, London, 1991. For their comments on this paper I am grateful to Brendan O'Leary and Leslie Hannah, and to William Walker and other members of the audience of a Conference organised in Florence by the Oslo History of Research Group. I am also grateful to Tony Benn for access to his papers, and to the staff of the John Ryland University Library, Manchester.

: Anthony Sampson, Anatomy of Britain, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1962; Michael Shanks, The Stagnant Society, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1961; Andrew Shonfield, Modern Capitalism: The Changing Balance of Public and Private Power, Oxford University Press, London, 1965; Thomas Balogh, "The Apotheosis of the Dilettante", in Hugh Thomas (ed.), The Establishment: A Symposium, Anthony Blond, London, 1959, pp. 83-126. 1 "Think how often it is argued in Britain that growth is held down by a failure to spend on research and development as high a percentage of national product as do the Americans. In France (and Germany and Australia) the argument tends to be that growth is held down by a failure to spend as high a percentage as the British." (B.R. Williams, "Research and Economic Growth - what should we expect?", Minerva, vol. 3, 1964, p. 57.)

207 David Edgerton

of its programme in the early 1960s.4 Then, and since, Labour's 1964 programme has been seen as one which promised to change a supposedly anti-technological and backward country into a meritocratic and technocratic one.5 I will argue here, expanding on previous work, that this now conventional picture is misleading both about the technological effort of the British state before 1964, and Labour's own policies in Government.6 First, what is striking is Britain's strength in R&D, suggesting that the British élite was neither anti- scientific nor anti-technological.7 Second, despite Labour's publicly proclaimed enthusiasm for technology and science, in government there was a critical examination of the basis of science and technology policy, which led to policies for technology quite different from those implied by the rhetoric of the "White Heat": Labour cut defence R&D significantly; sought a commercial return from public investments in civil technology; cancelled many large projects; was sceptical about a number of European ventures; and ceased to believe that R&D was a key issue in economic performance.8 Tony Benn, the Minister of Technology between 1966 and 1970, wrote after Labour's election defeat in 1970:

Technology is so closely linked in the public mind with Harold Wilson's famous 1963 Scarborough speech that most people have forgotten that a grandiose adherence to technology characterised the Macmillan government's thinking. The Scarborough speech broke away from this romantic attitude: it was an industrial speech, and Labour's Mintech [As the Ministry of Technology was often referred to] duly evolved into an industrial department... In Mintech it was quickly recognised that it was not technology that Britain lacked but a strong industrial organisation, good management, real attention to application.. .g

4 See especially, Harold Wilson, "A First-class Nation", speech at Edinburgh, 21 March 1964. Reprinted in Harold Wilson, The New Britain: Selected Speeches 1964, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1964, pp. 42-56. 5 Samuel Beer has argued that two strands of thought have shaped political culture in the twentieth century: the technocratic and the populist. In Britain the populist dominated, except for a brief technocratic challenge in the 1960s, which led to the Robbins expansion of higher education, the re• structuring of the science policy machinery, and the Fulton Report (Samuel Beer, Britain Against Itself, London, 1982, pp. 111-26). This sums up the consensus view of the matter. It is worth pointing out that this account is one about political culture, and not state culture, though the two are assumed to be much the same thing. 6 Edgerton, England and the Aeroplane. 7 For a broader perspective on this point see Edgerton, "Liberal Militarism", England and the Aeroplane, and Science, Technology and the British Industrial "Decline" 1870-1970, Cambridge, 1996. 8 It is also important to note that it was in the 1960s that academic units for the study of science and technology policy were created. There has been, however, a lack of cumulation of knowledge in studies of innovation policy in Britain. See David Edgerton, "British industrial research and development, 1900-1970", Journal of European Economic History, vol. 23, 1994, pp. 49-67, and the final section of this paper.

5 Anthony Wedgewood Benn MP, "Yesterday's Men at Mintech", New Statesman, 24 July 1970, p. 76.

208 The "While Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

In this paper I will show that Benn's analysis was substantially correct (although it is misleading in respect of the Scarborough speech), in both his description of policy, and his analysis of the British condition. Furthermore I shall argue that in 1964 Mintech was novel but not significant; by 1970 it was no longer novel, but was very significant.10 The turning point was 1966, with the decision to expand Mintech, and Wilson's appointment of the young Anthony Wedgwood Benn to run the new Ministry.

The new argument advanced here is primarily (but not entirely) based on a critical exa­ mination of long­available sources and arguments and on an awareness that, in some cases at least, the emphases of contemporary commentary and, especially, historiography can be fundamentally misleading. As I have argued elsewhere, the historiography of the twentieth­ century British state (and this is true even of wartime) deals almost entirely with civil aspects of' the state, and with the political system rather than with the state more broadly.11 This article departs from previous treatments of Labour's technological and industrial policies in the 1960s by looking first at the activities of the largely military Ministry of Aviation, rather than the politically more visible Mintech (second section), and then by focusing attention on the last years of Mintech when, despite its name, it was the most comprehensive production department in British history (third and fourth sections). The older literature tends to start with a discussion of the science policy debates of the early 1960s, followed by a discussion of Labour's Ministry of Technojogy, rather than the new Department of Education and Science, which was responsible for scientific research and higher education. I will treat technology consistently, ignoring science and higher education. In contrast to spending on technology, that on science and higher education expanded very rapidly in the late 1960s, but

111 Sir Maurice Dean, "The Machinery for Economic Planning: IV. The Ministry of Technology", Public Administration, 44, 1996, pp. 43­60; Norman J. Vig, Science and Technology in British Politics, Pergamon, Oxford, 1968; Sir Richard Clark, "Mintech in Retrospect ­ I", Omega, 1, 1973, pp. 25­38; "Mintech in Retrospect ­ II", Omega, 1, 1973, pp. 137­163; Norman J. Vig, "Policies for Science and Technology in Great Britain: Postwar Development and Reassessment", in Τ Nixon Long and Christopher Wright (eds.), Science Policies of Industrial Nations, Praeger, New York, 1975, pp. 62­109; F.M.G. Willson, "Coping with Administrative Growth: Super­Departments and the Ministerial Cadre 1957­77", in David Butler and A. H. Halsey (eds.), Policy and Politics: Essays in Honour of Norman Chester, London, Macmillan, 1978, pp. 35­50; M. Beesley and A. Mencher, "Managing Intervention: An Interpretation of the Mintech Experience", mimeo, London Business School, ca. 1975; David Hague and Geoffrey Wilkinson, The IRC ­ An Experiment in Industrial Intervention: A History of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, Allen and Unwin, London, 1983; Richard Coopey, "The White Heat of Scientific Revolution", Contemporary Record, 5/1, 1991, pp. 115­127. For a left critique see John Hughes, "An Economic Policy for Labour", New Left Review, 24, March/April 1964, pp. 5­32.

11 Edgerton. England and the Aeroplane; "Liberal Militarism": "Whatever happened to the British warfare state? The Ministry of Supply, 1945­1951 ", in Helen Mercer et al (eds.), Labour Governments and Private Industry: The Experience of ¡945­1951, Edinburgh, 1992; "Public ownership and the British arms industry, 1920­1950", in Robert Milward and John Singleton (eds.), The Political Economy of Nationalisation in Britain, ¡920­1950, Cambridge, 1995.

209 David Edgerton the latter still await detailed, critical consideration, even though near contemporary studies claimed that higher education for science and engineering was over-expanded in the 1960s.12 Critical re-examination is required not just at the institutional level. Much historical work on R&D and technology is vitiated by the assumption that expenditures on R&D and rates of economic growth are positively correlated. In the fifth section of the article I show that during the 1960s influential advisers in Britain did not accept this argument (in my view correctly) and that this rejection had an important influence on policy. In conclusion, I show how since the 1970s analysts have given a less than adequate picture of the "White Heat", especially by using what I call a "misallocation model" of British R&D in the 1960s.

The context of the White Heat speech

In 1963, Harold Wilson, the newly-elected leader of the Labour Party, made a speech at the Party's annual conference which has a central place in the historiography of postwar Britain. It is known for one famous, misquoted, phrase: "the white heat of the technological revo• lution", which comes from the peroration:

in all our plans for the future, we are re-defining and we are restating our Socialism in terms of the scientific revolution. But that revolution cannot become a reality unless we are prepared to make far-reaching changes in economic and social attitudes which permeate our whole system of society. The Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry.1·1

This quotation suggests that the speech was about adapting to a worldwide scientific revolution, and indeed Wilson waxed lyrical about automation, a buzz-word of the 1950s, and the consequences of unregulated automation for employment. The other main theme of the speech was the need to expand higher education. Historians rightly place the speech into two contexts: an internal one where Wilson sought to find a political language to supersede the divisions between traditionalists and revisionists; and an external one in which increasing concern with industrial and technological performance, industrial planning, civil science policy

12 See K.G. Gannicot and M. Blaug, "Manpower forecasting since Robbins: a science lobby in action", Higher Education Review, 2, 1969, pp. 56-74. See also my Science, Technology and the British Industrial "Decline". 13 Speech opening the Science Debate at the Party's Annual Conference, Scarborough, 1963, in Harold Wilson, Purpose in Politics: Selected Speeches, London, 1964, p. 27.

210 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s and the reform of the state led the Conservative government to create the National Economic Development Council (1962), the Trend Committee on civil research and development, and a new industry ministry under the humbly-born Edward Heath.14

But what was Wilson proposing in terms of policies for science and technology? He argued that the country needed more scientists, to keep them in Britain, to make better use of them, and to stimulate the use of research in industry. Wilson strongly criticised the current use of scientists and technologists:

Until very recently over half of our trained scientists were engaged in defence projects or so-called defence projects. Real defence, of course, is essential. But so many of our scientists were employed on purely prestige projects that never left the drawing board, and many more scientists are deployed, not on projects that are going to increase Britain's productive power, but on some new gimmick or additive to some consumer product...15

In order to make better use of these scientific resources, Wilson suggested the need for new technological breakthroughs. Instead of "misdirected research and development contracts in the field of defence", Wilson said, "If we were now to use the technique of R and D contracts in civil industry I believe we could within a measurable period of time establish new indus• tries which would make us once again one of the foremost industrial nations of the world"."1 Britain's "scientific wealth" needed to be mobilised, "for the task of creating, not the means of human destruction, but the munitions of peace".17 And he concluded: "For those who have studied the formidable Soviet challenge in the education of scientists and technologists, and above all, in the ruthless application of scientific techniques in Soviet industry, know that our future lies not in military strength alone but in the efforts, the sacrifices, and above all the energies which a free people can mobilise for the future greatness of our country".18 In his eve of conference speech, Wilson had noted that: "we have reserves of skill, and craftsman• ship, of science and technology, design and creative ability, of organisation and salesman• ship, which, if given full scope, will make Britain what we should be, the pilot-plan, the

14 See for example, Vig, Science and Technology. Heath was given the title of Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development and President of the Board of Trade; cf. John Campbell, Edward Heath: a biography, London, 1994, pp. 147-8. 15 Wilson, Purpose in Politics, p. 22. By trained scientists Wilson presumably meant qualified scientists and engineers engaged in research and development, rather than all trained scientists (and engineers). 16 Wilson, Purpose in Politics, p. 23. 17 Wilson, Purpose in Politics, p. 27. 18 Wilson, Purpose in Politics, p. 28.

211 David Edgerton tool-room of the world".19 In January 1964 Wilson again reiterated the theme of civil, rather than military R&D contracts, and the need to expand civil R&D and to give it more purpose.20 In Washington in 1963 Wilson said that Britain had:

a reservoir of unused and underused talent, of skill and craftsmanship, of inventiveness, and ingenuity, of administrative ability and scientific creati veness which if mobilised will, within a measurable period of time enable us to become - not the workshop of the world; that is no longer our role - but the pilot plant, the toolroom of the world. Our scientists are among the finest in the world. The tragedy is we don't produce enough of them, and those we do produce we do not use intelligently... the key to our plan to redynamise Britain's economy, is our plan to mobilise the talents of our scientists and technicians, redeployed from missile and warheads, on research and development contracts, civil research and development to produce the new instruments and tools of economic advance both for Britain and for the war on poverty in under-developed areas of the Commonwealth and elsewhere.21

In an article in the New York Times in 1963, he noted:

Our aircraft and missile-defence programmes have familiarised us with the techniques of Government research-and-development contracts and we shall extend them to civil industry - indeed, we shall need to do so if measures of world disarmament or even less far-reaching changes in defence production, are not to produce widespread redundancy among scientists and technical workers.22

Although there were few specifics, the aim was clear: to shift from military to civil R&D, and to use the methods of the military in the civil sector.

The military dimensions of technology policy were critical in the early 1960s, and they were ones with which Wilson had been intimately concerned before becoming Leader of his party. The late 1950s and early 1960s were the years of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and of major military-technological fiascos: technological issues were at the centre of

19 "Eve of conference speech on Foreign Affairs, Scarborough, 1963", in Wilson, Purpose in Politics, p. 12. 20 "Labour's Economic Policy" speech at Swansea, 25 January 1964, in The New Britain, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1964, p. 33. 21 Harold Wilson, Speech at National Press Club, Washington, 1 April 1963, in Wilson, Purpose in Politics, pp. 215-16.

22 "Wilson defines British Socialism", 15 September 1963, in Wilson, Purpose in Politics, p. 268.

212 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

defence policy and international relations.23 Criticising Harold Macmillan after the cancellation of Blue Streak in 1960, Wilson (then economic spokesman) argued that Macmillan had "tried to find a short cut to greatness, and, as he hoped, a cheap short cut to greatness. The means he chose was to sacrifice the whole of our defence resources to keep up with our nuclear neighbours". The Prime Minister,

like so many other rather pathetic individuals whose sense of social prestige outruns their purse... is left in the situation at the end of the day of the man who dare not admit that he cannot afford a television set... and who just puts up the aerial instead. That is our situation, because without an independent means of delivery, the independent nuclear deterrent, the right hon Gentleman's cheap, short cut to national greatness, is an empty illusion.24

In January 1963, in a debate on the Nassau agreement (which gave Britain US Polaris missiles to replace Blue Streak and the cancelled Sky Bolt), Wilson, who since late 1961 had been Shadow Foreign Secretary, further taunted the government's nuclear pretensions. Britain, said Wilson, "should cease the attempt to remain an independent nuclear power".25 Such a policy carried with it enormous implications for the British military-technological base: no new nuclear weapon development, and no new missile and bomber development.

Labour in office

The British military-technological effort was dominated by the misleadingly named Ministry of Aviation. This procured aircraft for the RAF, funded both military and civil R&D in aerospace, and also in military electronics. The Ministry of Aviation was government's largest R&D spending ministry by a huge margin.26 Even the civil R&D spending of the

23 It is also important to note that two important figures in Labour thinking about science and technology, P.M.S. Blacken and Richard Crossman, were also important contributors to the debate on strategy. See R.H.S. Crossman, "The Nuclear Obsession", Encounter, 11/4, July 1958, pp. 3-10; P.M.S. Blackett, Studies of War: Nuclear and Conventional, Oliver and Boyd, London, 1962. 24 House of Commons, 27 April 1960 [Blue Streak debate], in Wilson, Purpose in Politics, pp. 167, 178, 172. Wilson alluded three times to a comparison with the groundnuts scheme - a failed Labour programme to grow peanuts in East Africa in the 1940s which Conservatives constantly taunted Labour with as an example of failed government enterprise. 25 House of Commons, 31 January 1963, in Wilson, Purpose in Politics, p. 199. 2<' In this period the new Ministry of Defence undertook very little R&D, and what it did was restricted to conventional army and naval weapons. It was Aviation which dominated warlike R&D expenditures, as had its predecessor, the Ministry of Supply.

213 David Edgerton

Ministry of Aviation was comparable with that of the Atomic Energy Authority, or the research councils, or the universities (see Table 1). How Labour dealt with the Ministry of Aviation, and the aircraft industry, is therefore critical to any analysis of Labour's technology policy. Although Labour's policy was not clearly spelt out before the election, when it came into office it made some dramatic early decisions.

Table 1:1963-4 Government Expenditure on Civil R&D £m and Responsible Ministry from 1964

Total 167.6 Research Councils 40.3 (to DES) of which DSIR 25.4 (to DES/Mintech) Universities and Learned Societies 31.2 (to DES) Ministry of Aviation 31.2 (MoA/Mintech) NIRNS 7.8 (to DES) AEA 45.0 (to Mintech)

NB. This table is of civil expenditures only. The Atomic Energy Authority had substantial additional defence R&D expenditure; the Ministry of Aviation was largely military. Excepting the Ministry of Aviation, most of the expenditures took place within the public sector (if universities are included in the public sector). Source: P. G. Gummen, Scientists in Whitehall, Manchester, 1980, p. 39.

After winning the General Election of 1964, Harold Wilson offered the job of Minister of Aviation (outside the Cabinet) to Roy Jenkins. Wilson told Jenkins the Ministry was a mess that would take over a year to clear up, after which its functions would be dispersed.27 Indeed Labour quickly cancelled most of the ministry's large development projects: the P-l 154, the HS-681, and most importantly of all, the TSR2.28 The cancellations caused a great parlia• mentary rumpus; from November 1964, a "series of four or five major aviation clashes... had come near to dominating the House of Commons stage".29 These actions were not what one would expect from a party committed simply to funding more technology. Nor would

27 Roy Jenkins, A Life at the Centre, London, 1991, p. 157. Jenkins, a journalist, had taken an interest in aviation and had written a couple of articles on civil aviation in July 1964 (pp. 142-43). 28 Jenkins, Life, pp. 160-166. The Hawker-Siddeley PI 154 was a supersonic VTOL aircraft for the RAF; the naval version had been cancelled by the Conservatives; the Hawker-Siddeley HS681 was a military STOL transport; the Vickers/English Electric TSR2 was a multi-role supersonic aircraft. For an insider's view of the cancellations see Solly Zuckerman, Monkeys, Men and Missiles, Collins, London, 1988, ch. 21.

29 Jenkins, Life, p. 173.

214 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

one necessarily have expected a Labour government to announce the purchase of US aircraft as alternatives - the F5 (Phantom), the C-130 (Hercules) and the Fill.30 The Government also decided to indicate that Concord (as it was then spelt in Britain) would be cancelled, but by January 1965, because of the objections of the French (who were nevertheless probably keen to cancel) Concord was reprieved.

Labour also undertook a major enquiry into the aircraft industry.31 A committee, under Lord Plowden, reported in 1965. Its central argument was that aircraft projects had to be argued for carefully on economic grounds, and that the aircraft industry received government support quite out of line with other industries, and that a run-down was desirable.32 The aircraft industry and the aeronautical engineers reacted furiously, even before the report was published. In June 1965 the unfortunate journalist Richard Worcester, a man connected to the Labour Party and critical of the industry, was personally attacked at a meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society.33 The President of the Society criticised the Plowden Report for not believing in the potential of aviation.34 In February 1966 the Society organised a protest meeting, which attracted nearly 350 people and lasted almost three hours.35 But by the end of 1967 the membership appeared to despair: Roy Fedden argued that government listened too much to scientists and not enough to engineers; meanwhile, the "industry was too inclined to take things lying down"; Mr Cleaver of Rolls-Royce complained that no one outside the Society seemed to take note of its arguments; F. R. Banks, complained that "no British government of recent years, whether Conservative or Labour, had really believed in

311 In 1964 Harold Wilson had complained that Britain was importing aircraft: "Britain pioneered jet aircraft. Yet our airlines are dependent on foreign planes - only in engines do we still lead - our Navy has to go to the US for the new aircraft it needs. And to the US for Army and Navy helicopters too: a week or two ago we had the Minister of Defence in the House of Commons not even presenting the facts and the figures because he was afraid of having to confess that we had to cap-in-hand to America for essential military and naval aircraft; whether to import them or to build them here on the basis of foreign know-how on a royalty basis. This is humiliating". (Harold Wilson, "A First-class nation", in 77ie New Britain, p. 45). The British armed forces had purchased US aircraft before, but only in emergencies: in the late 1930s, in the Second World War, and in the early 1950s, notably in the case of B-29 (Washington) bombers, but never before were foreign aircraft to be the mainstays of the RAF. Of course, this particular pass had been sold with the decision to purchase Polaris.

11 Jenkins wanted to establish a three man committee of inquiry into the aircraft industry headed by Sir Edwin Plowden, and very unusually, having two MPs, Austen Albu and Aubrey Jones as the additional members. In fact the committee was to be much larger, and to exclude Albu; cf. Jenkins, Life, p. 167. 32 Ministry of Aviation, Report of a Committee of Enquiry into the Aircraft Industry, Cmd. 2853, 1965. 33 Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, vol. 69, 1965, pp. 611-626. Richard Worcester went on to publish, The Roots of Air Policy, Hodder and Stoughton, London. 1966. 34 Sir George Gardner, Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, vol. 70, 1966, p. 303. 35 Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, vol. 70, 1966, pp. 545-52.

215 David Edgerton aerospace activities".36 There was, therefore, no love lost between aeronautical engineers and the party of the "White Heat".

From 1967 the Minister of Technology, Anthony Wedgewood Benn, was responsible for the aircraft industry, and his relationship with it was less than cordial. As he recorded in his diary of a speech he gave at a dinner of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors (SBAC) in June 1967:

I was determined to indicate that there was a difference between the Ministry of Technology attitude to aviation and the old Ministries of Aviation in the past. I said in my speech that in the old days Ministers of Aviation could get money as easily as pinching pennies off an old man's drum, but now it was going to be different and we had to justify every penny. Those present were absolutely livid at this speech. They thought it was offensive, and it led to a major row, but it was the turning point. It was a warning that there would be no more Concordes and that we would expect them to take some risks.37

Benn's diaries contain further evidence of continuing Tory and aircraft industry hostility. At a by-election meeting in 1968 he noted "there were some crusty Tory ladies there with big hats shouting about TSR2".38 In September 1968 he recorded of another SBAC dinner: "I find it offensive meeting these big industrialists who live on government work, who are financed by government, and who are violently, bitterly, antigovemment from beginning to end".39 In May 1969 Benn saw the Chairman of Rolls-Royce on television complaining that "civil servants were not interested in long-term developments and that when you talked to them or politicians about these things a glazed look came into their faces, as if they were thinking of what they were going to have for lunch." This Benn felt, was "so unjust and, in the light of all the help we had given Rolls-Royce, so unfair that I wrote him a stinking letter..."40

There was however, no question that under Labour there were huge cuts in expenditure in industry for military aircraft R&D, from £202m in 1964-65 to £120m in 1970-71. This did not of course mean that development work ceased. There were many development projects underway or newly started: the Spey-engined Phantom; the Belfast transport; the conversion

36 Taken from Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, vol. 71, 1967, pp. 810-12. 37 Tony Benn, Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963-67, Hutchinson, London, 1987 [hereafter Benn I], 28 June 1967, p. 505. Jad Adams Tony Benn, London, 1992, p. 277, gives a somewhat different text, but notes that the official version of the speech was toned down (p. 499, n. 5). 38 Tony Benn, Office without Power: Diaries 1968-72, Hutchinson, London 1988 [hereafter Benn II], 22 March 1968,'p. 49. 3" Benn II, 18 September 1968, p. 102. 411 Benn II, 1 May 1969, p. 164.

216 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

of Comets to maritime reconnaissance Nimrods; the Buccaneer Mk2; the Harrier; a dual Harrier; two important Anglo-French projects, the AFGVA (which was intended to replace TSR2 and from which the French would withdraw, scuppering the project) and the Jaguar; some helicopters; and at the end of our period the beginning of the British/German/Italian MRCA project, and the conversion of the Victor Mk 2 to a tanker. On the civil side, however, R&D expenditures in the aircraft industry increased dramatically throughout the 1960s. In 1964-66 some £20 million was being spent in industry, while for 1968-69 the estimate increased to more than £66 million of which £49 million was going on Concorde.

Concorde was easily the largest single project, though it cost less than the total of military aircraft R&D. As we have noted, Concorde was started under the previous Conservative government, and Labour nearly cancelled it, but it was under Labour that the greatest development expenditures fell (see Table 2). The Minister of Technology was clearly ambivalent about Concorde, and indeed the Ministry was notably reluctant to get involved in large civil aerospace projects. The only major one launched was the Rolls-Royce RB211 engine.41 Although the government had co-funded the design study phase of the European Airbus, it pulled out of further development because of the sales prospects; the terms of the agreement proposed (including the lack of commitment to using the RB211) and possible competition from a British aircraft (the BAC 3-11). In the event BAC asked for support for the 3-11, but did not get it. That Mintech's attitude to high technology was highly influenced by economic considerations is clear from space policy. The Conservatives had decided to make the Blue Streak rocket the basis of a European space launcher; by 1964 the treaty establishing the European Space Vehicle Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) was established. In the early 1960s the costs of ELDO were comparable with Concord. Work proceeded slowly, and costs overran, as usual. In early 1966, the British Minister of Aviation questioned the whole basis of the project, arguing that the European market was too small and that in any case Europe could not compete with the USA. Britain's European partners rejected these arguments. Nevertheless, Britain remained in ELDO, but paid less. In 1968, however, after the French vetoed British entry into the Common Market, Tony Benn repeated the earlier arguments, and announced that Britain was pulling out of ELDO. At this time, however, Britain announced it would be developing its own smaller scale programme. In Britain economic considerations were important, while in Europe the desire to build up technological capability took precedence.42 In Britain these technological capacities already existed but were not felt to be proving their worth;

11 This project led to the bankruptcy of Rolls-Royce and its nationalisation by the Conservative government in 1971. The RB211 has, in many versions, proved to be a very successful engine. 42 See Michelangelo de Maria and John Krige, "Early European attempts in Launcher technology: original sins in ELDO's sad parable". History and Technology, vol. 9, 1992, pp. 109-37, esp. pp. 125- 30. This is not to say that Labour was against European collaboration: Wilson proposed a European Technological Community, and indeed the Labour government pursued a number of major European ventures in military aircraft.

217 David Edgerton in Europe they were being built up in the hope that they would one day do so with no expec• tation of immediate return. Britain and Europe were in different phases of development.

Table 2: Government Contributions to Civil Aircraft and Engine Development from 1945 to 31 March 1974, £m in 1974 Prices

Payments Receipts Total 1505.4 141.9 Aircraft 741.2 54.5 Engines 764.2 87.4

Largest Projects Mid-point, year Concorde 406.8 5.8 1968 *01ympus 593 297.0 nil 1968 *RB211 224.4 10.4 1971 *Proteus 72.2 9.2 1950 Trident 53.5 1.6 1965 Princess 47.1 nil 1951 BAC1-11 45.3 6.1 1965 Comet 1-4 38.0 12.2 1956 *Eland 34.8 0.1 1952 Brabazon 32.8 nil 1948

*Engines. The Olympus was the engine for the Concorde.

Source: Gardner N.K., "The Economics of Launching aid", in A. Whiting (ed.), 77;e Economics of Industrial Subsidies, HMSO, London, 1976, p. 153.

By 1968, on the eve of Concorde's first flight, a decision was needed as to whether the production of Concorde for the airlines should be funded by government. The government inserted a clause in the Industrial Expansion Bill to allow for loans and the government purchase of special machinery (worth some £30 million). While the Bill was much criticised by Conservatives, they did not oppose the funding of Concorde production. The only open opposition to the financing of Concorde production came from two Labour MPs, Hugh Jenkins and Edwin Brooks. They were accused by Conservative MPs of preferring to "see the Government spending money breeding bigger and better TUC cart horses rather than developing this modern exciting aircraft".43 Benn, who had proposed the Bill, went as far as

43 Mr McMaster, House of Commons Official Report [hereafter Hansard], 3 April 1968, Col. 521. The TUC (Trade Union Congress) is still the central organisation of the trade unions; it had been famously portrayed as a cart horse by the leftist cartoonist Low.

218 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

to defend Hugh Jenkins from the charge of being a member of the anti-Concorde "lunatic fringe", and said that Jenkins "might well have argued that if we had spent more money on modernising the railway system, on introducing containerisation earlier or going in for fuel cell development or for the battery electric car, this might have brought a better return in terms of money or human enjoyment". Indeed, Benn indicated that he wanted to "tilt the balance a little more in favour of surface transportation and not to allow air transportation to be the only field in which major efforts are made". Benn had noted "if... I am asked what the market for it [Concorde] will be, it is very hard to say".44 Hugh Jenkins withdrew his amendment referring to the impossibility of winning against "blind, touching faith", and the "evangelical enthusiasm", the "orgiastic atmosphere" - "it was impossible to break through this sort of conviction".45

The evolution of Mintech

So much, one might think, of the "White Heat": major cuts in funding for innovation in defence technology, space technology - and barely concealed doubts about the major civil project of the era - Concorde. Far from unleashing money for technological development, the government was less than enthusiastic about very popular British technologies. Does Labour's Ministry of Technology, created in 1964 as the agency to give purpose to the White Heat, make any difference to the story?46 The first point to note is that in 1964-65 Mintech was very small: it was responsible for the Atomic Energy Authority, the National Research Development Corporation (which Wilson had created in 1948),47 and some of the laboratories of the disbanded Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (notably the National Physical Laboratory, the National Engineering Laboratory, and the Warren Spring laboratory).48 Mintech accounted for only about a third of government civil R&D, and of

44 A.W. Benn, Hansard, 3 April 1968, Cols. 527-8. 45 Hugh Jenkins, Hansard, 3 April 1968, Col. 534. 46 The creation of the Ministry of Technology was criticised on two main grounds: that it separated science and technology (which had to some extent been together in the DSIR) between Mintech and the Department of Education and Science; and that such a Ministry of Technology suggested that technology was an independent economic variable which could be used to stimulate the economy. This last was precisely the objection to it felt by the future economic adviser to the Ministry, Prof. Bruce Williams (interview with Richard Coopey, 13 March 1991). 47 The NRDC was a body charged with the commercialisation of patents derived from public sector work. It gave funds to the private sector to develop new technologies. The sums available for this pur• pose were increased by the Labour Government. The form of support was analogous to launching aid for aircraft. Wilson made a number of references to NRDC in 1963-64 as the example of what could be done, referring to Hovercraft, the Atlas computer, and fuel cells. 48 Not all the ex-DSIR applied laboratories went to Mintech: the Road Research Laboratory went to the Ministry of Transport and the Tropical Products Institute to the Ministry of Overseas Development. A number of other DSIR laboratories went to the Science and Engineering Research Council.

219 David Edgerton course, a much smaller proportion of total government R&D. It was essentially a ministry of intra-mural government civil technological development, dominated by atomic energy. Atomic energy expenditure amounted to some £50 million, while the rest of Mintech began by spending only about £12 million. Indeed, it was in the field of atomic energy that the Labour government - including Mintech - made a decision which went in a different direction from the aviation cancellations. In 1965 the CEGB and the Ministry of Fuel and Power decided to go ahead with the building of the Atomic Energy Authority's Advanced Gas Reactors, rather than adopt US Light Water Reactors. This has subsequently been regarded as a disastrous choice, but was widely applauded at the time.49 However, the AEA's R&D budget declined under Labour, even though development of the High Temperature Reactor, the Steam Generating Heavy Water Reactor, and the Fast Breeder Reactor continued.

The Mintech of 1964-65 did not last. It turned out to be an intermediate stage between wide-ranging discussions about the machinery of government for technology, industry and defence procurement, and the creation of the huge Mintech of 1966-70. Before coming to power Labour had considered turning the Ministry of Aviation, the obvious choice, into a Ministry of Technology; both Harold Wilson and Richard Crossman proposed this.50 In early 1964 Labour-sympathising scientists, notably Prof. Patrick Blackett, rejected the idea of a new ministry based in any way on Aviation: one especially significant reason was the poor reputation of the Ministry of Aviation, not least for cost control.51 Instead many schemes for revamping the Board of Trade, creating a Ministry of Industry, and so on, were canvassed within the party.52 Indeed, Wilson did create a new industry ministry. He disliked the existing industry ministry, the Board of Trade, of which he had been President in the late 1940s, and distrusted its laissez-faire orientation, just as he distrusted the Treasury. Much has been written on Wilson's alternative Treasury, the ill-fated Department of Economic Affairs; less attention has been given to the longer lived and more significant creation of an industry ministry more powerful than the Board of Trade. Wilson intended to expand Mintech from the start.53 Its former Permanent Secretary was to write of three

49 Duncan Burn, Nuclear Power and the Energy Crisis: Politics and the Atomic Industry, London, 1978; Roger Williams, The Nuclear Power Decisions: British Policies, 1953-78, London. 1980. 50 David Horner, "Scientists, Trade Unions and Labour Movement Policies for Science and Technology: 1947-1964", 2 vols., Aston University Ph. D., 1986, vol. 2, pp. 194, 196. The White Heat speech made reference to a Ministry of Science of unspecified powers; only in 1964 did Labour start to speak of a Ministry of Technology. 51 In the early 1960s, a major overcharging on contracts for Bloodhound missiles by the main contractor, Ferranti, was exposed. 52 Horner, vol. 2, pp. 198,204. 53 Harold Wilson, The Labour Government, 1964-1970, London, 1971, p. 8.

220 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

Mintechs - the "Ministry of Technology", the "Ministry of Engineering" and the "Ministry of Industry".54 Within five years Mintech became the most comprehensive production ministry Britain has ever had.

On its formation Mintech stripped the Board of the Trade of the NRDC, sponsorship of the so-called "bridgehead industries" - machine tools, computers, electronics and telecommuni• cations; responsibility for mechanical and electrical engineering and standard weights and measures was taken from the Board of Trade in 1965, shipbuilding in 1966, and, chemicals and textiles in 1969. The Board of Trade remained as a ministry of external trade and as a regulator of business. More significant were the transfers to Mintech from other ministries. Mintech took over the bulk of the Ministry of Aviation (announced 1966), some functions of the disbanded Department of Economic Affairs (1969) - notably the Industrial Reorga• nisation Corporation and industrial policy - and the Ministry of Fuel and Power (1969). At the time of the 1969 additions Crossman noted that: "It looks as if Harold has taken a great deal of care and trouble in the planning of what he really cares about, Benn's new Ministry of Industry, Harold's first love" [emphasis added].55 Tony Benn had a point when he called Mintech "the first techno-economic ministry in the world".56 In Mintech, technical civil servants and administrative civil servants worked side by side, and in its senior levels Mintech had a very high proportion of technically qualified staff. Many of its senior staff had come from the Atomic Energy Authority, for example John Adams and leuan Maddock. It prefigured many of the suggested reforms of the civil service made by Fulton.

The most controversial, and most agonised over merger, was with the Ministry of Aviation. The Plowden committee noted that the RAF was critical of the Ministry, and that the aircraft industry would have preferred to deal with the RAF directly. The committee put two arguments against such a transfer of Aviation to the Ministry of Defence: the large scale of the Ministry and the need to develop civil aviation, seen as indivisible from military aviation.57 Others saw the issue slightly differently: according to a former senior official of the Ministry of Supply, if Aviation was tending towards more military production it should move to the Ministry of Defence; if the civil side was to be favoured it should remain independent or go to Mintech.58 In June 1966 Wilson announced that while Aviation R&D was to be transferred

54 Richard Clarke, "Mintech in Retrospect - I", p. 25. 55 Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, vol. Ill, London, 1977, p. 676, entry for Sunday October 12, 1969. 56 Engineering, 6 November 1970, p. 485. 57 Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Aircraft Industry [Plowden], p. 87. 58 Denis Haviland, contribution to "Relationships between Government and Aeronautics - a discussion", Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, vol. 70, March 1966, p. 383.

221 David Edgerton to Mintech, there was to be a review as to whether the procurement functions might move to the Ministry of Defence; in November 1966 he announced that the Ministry would be transferred en bloc, but that a Minister would be appointed to act as the link to defence, and that the Ministry of Defence would take the lead in international co-operation in defence.59 In fact, a split of Aviation into procurement and research would have suited both Mintech and Ministry of Defence, but could not be achieved.60 The merger took place in February 1967; as the New Scientist reported: "After some years of hesitation, Mr Wilson is at last having his own way over the Ministry of Aviation".61 Benn was appointed Minister of Technology in July 1966, on the resignation of Frank Cousins, and just after Wilson had announced the transfer of aviation R&D to Mintech. He noted that he had been "given the chance to create a new department that can really change the face of Britain and its prospects for survival" [emphasis added].62 The merger with Aviation was significant in terms of capacity to intervene in industry. As Benn stated while addressing his staff in 1969: Aviation brought in "scientists and engineers of exceptional ability" and

an experience of dealing with industry which simply did not exist in any other department in Whitehall. If those who have come with that knowledge of industry into this wider department with its new responsibilities can make that knowledge and information available for more general purposes, then, not for the first time, defence will have pioneered a technology not in hardware but in the relationship between Government and the firms that earn us our living.63

Announcing the further expansion of Mintech in October 1969 in Parliament, Benn argued that "we have gained very substantially by the merger with the Ministry of Aviation in being able to bring into our work with private industry people who have acquired over the years... a great deal of knowledge of the defence industries".64

It is useful to see 1966, and not 1964, as the key date in the Mintech story. Indeed, the post- 1966 Mintech was a recreation, with some variations, of the Ministry of Supply as it existed between 1945 and 1955. This was not a contemporary perception, and has also escaped the attention of historians. The postwar Ministry of Supply, like Mintech, dominated procurement,

59 Hansard, 16 June 1966, vol. 729, cols. 1658-9; vol. 736, cols. 939-41, 21 November 1966. 60 Clarke, "Mintech in Retrospect - I", p. 32. 61 New Scientist, 9 February 1967, p. 320. The Ministry of Defence, however, tried to get the Ministry of Aviation away from Mintech (cf. Benn II, 13 March 1970, p. 253). 62 Benn I, 30 June 1966, p. 441. 63 "Minister's talk to staff', Mintech Review, May 1969. 64 Hansard, 21 October 1969, col. 1072.

222 The "White Heal" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

R&D expenditure, and had responsibility for key civilian technologies and industries, notably steel, engineering, vehicles. It also controlled aviation and atomic power.65 The differences were that Mintech was not responsible for army R&D and procurement, but it did have additional responsibility for civil research establishments, more industrial sectors, and the energy industries. Mintech was broader in scope, and much higher in the ministerial pecking order than Supply.66 Mintech was clearly the industry ministry, while Supply had to share its position with other "production departments".

Mintech in action

Benn was concerned, just after having become Minister, about his "big problem which is how we stop ourselves from becoming a party of cancellers, who get the economists in to rule out all the projects advocated by the enthusiastic scientists and technologists.67 After all, Wilson had proclaimed that the future of Britain depended on harnessing exactly that enthusiasm with public money. Mintech's programme then shifted to emphasise another aspect of the Wilsonian scheme: the shift of resources to new areas. In particular, Mintech stressed the need to shift R&D spending from defence to civil, away from aerospace and nuclear, and from government laboratories to the private sector. These themes were articulated in speech after speech.68 But there was also another shift. From emphasising technology as being one of the key problems of British industry, Mintech increasingly focused on questions of production, management, and industrial structure. Mintech's major piece of legislation, the Industrial Expansion Act, 1968, was concerned with industrial finance, and state intervention in British industry, not R&D. The Act was essentially an enabling measure, which provided a procedure for selective financing of industrial investment schemes and for the creation of industrial boards, through an abbreviated parliamentary procedure.69 It also made permanent provisions of the Ministry of Supply Act 1939. The Industrial Expansion Act, which applied to all ministers, was Mintech's creation, marking Mintech as the key industrial ministry: it was

65 The British nuclear programme was started within the Ministry: it was hived off to the state-funded nationalised industry, the Atomic Energy Authority, in 1955. 66 On the Ministry of Supply see: David Edgerton. "Whatever happened to the British warfare state? The Ministry of Supply, 1945-1951". in Helen Mercer et al (eds.), Labour Governments and Private Industry: the experience of 1945-1951, Edinburgh, 1992. "7 Benn I, 22 July 1966, p. 459. 68 A.W. Benn, The Government's Policy for Technology, Special Lecture given at the Imperial College of Science and Technology. 17 Oct. 1967 (London, Ministry of Technology, 1967) is especially cogent. 69 The concept of an industrial enabling Act went back to the 1930s, but was usually rejected. Govern• ments preferred the passing of individual Acts of Parliament for particular industrial schemes (e.g. the Cotton Industry Acts). Labour has passed a limited enabling Act for the establishment of industrials boards in 1947. See Tony Benn, House of Commons Debates, vol. 757, 1 February 1968, Cols. 1576-8.

223 David Edgerton used to finance Concorde production, the building of the QE2 liner, R&D and general finance for the computer industry, and the finance of three aluminium smelters by the Board of Trade. The Act was the precursor to the much better known Industry Acts of 1972 and 1975. One useful way of seeing the Act is as extending to sectors other than defence and aerospace, the ability of the state to finance and direct industrial development.

Table 3: Mintech's Research Establishments

Civil

AEA Research Group - Harwell, Culham AEA Reactor Group - Risley, Winfrith, Dounreay National Physical Laboratory Fire Research Station National Engineering Laboratory Warren Spring Laboratory Forest Products Research Laboratory Hydraulics Research Station Laboratory of the Government Chemist Torry Research Station Water Pollution Research Laboratory

Military

Royal Aircraft Establishment A&AEE National Gas Turbine Establishment Royal Radar Establishment Signals Research and Development Establishment Explosives Research and Development Establishment Rocket Propulsion Establishment AEA Research Group - Aldermaston

From 1967 Mintech was responsible for most of the great government scientific and technological laboratories, both military and civil (see Table 3). These operated within the civil service structure, with the exception of those of the Atomic Energy Authority. Some of these laboratories dated from before the Great War (for example the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the National Physical Laboratory), while many others had been created during and after the Second World War (notably the atomic energy establishments). What to do with these laboratories was a major question for Mintech, but "in spite of the original

224 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s expectation, the arguments came to point decisively to redeployment and reduction, rather than expansion, of the numbers in the government-financed establishments".70 Expenditure was highly concentrated in defence, and in aerospace and nuclear, areas from which government wanted to withdraw, at least partially. The Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, began to do a significant amount of non-nuclear civil work.71 The story in the ex-Aviation establishments, which were overwhelmingly military in orientation, is similar. There were reductions in expenditure, in staffing, and an increase in the amount of civil work. Even before the Aviation transfer attempts were made to link the military work to civil concerns: Mintech was represented on the Defence Research Committee and links were established between research establishments and Mintech; in March 1966 an industrial systems unit was established at the Royal Radar Establishment.72 In July 1968, when government announced further cuts in defence R&D spending and staffing it was stated that "some of those released will be transferred to civil work in the establishments".73 Strategies of diversification, and spin-off links to industry, were followed in all the military establishments.74 The Plowden report, it is worth noting, had been very sceptical of Ministry of Aviation suggestions that the aeronautical establishments should retain employment by shifting to civil and non-aeronautical work.75 Indeed, the attempt to use the military establishments for civil purposes was not a great success, as Coopey has pointed out for Aldermaston.76

However, the run-down in defence R&D and the defence establishments was not to continue (see Table 4). In January 1969 Richard Crossman noted:

All our election commitments were to reorientate the whole balance of R&D away from defence to civil affairs. We haven't done it. Instead, Denis [Healey - Minister of Defence] has managed to say that if we are to make major cuts in overseas military commitments wc must maintain a predominant position for R&D, and have the best even for our limited,

1 Clarke, "Mintech in Retrospect - Π", p. 140. 71 See Coopey, "Restructuring", for details of the Aldermaston case. In the 1950s 10% of Aldermaston's budget was for non-military nuclear work, done to attract those physicists concerned to continue publishing (cf. J. Hendry and J.D. Lawson, Fusion Research in the UK 1945-1960, Harwell, 1993, p. 34). 72 Statement on the Defence Estimates 1967, Cmnd. 3203, Feb. 1967, p. 44. 73 Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy 1968, Cmnd. 3701, July 1968, p. 12. 74 The best studied is RRE. See Coopey, "Restructuring", and Donald MacKenzie and Graham Spinardi, "The Technological Impact of a Defence Research Establishment", in Coopey et al (eds.), Defence Science and Technology. 75 Plowden, pp. 88-90. 76 Coopey, "Restructuring".

225 David Edgerton

new, European-based defences. If our equipment is reduced it must, he maintains, be of the best and if we are to buy British it means that the R&D can't be cut back in proportion to the cut in our foreign commitments.77

Crossman was wrong to suggest that nothing had been done. As we have seen, cuts in defence R&D were very large, and proportionally larger than cuts in defence spending overall. But from the very late 1960s two big new projects were started: the MRCA and the Chevaline upgrade for the Polaris missile. The latter came out of Aldermaston. and was argued for on three grounds: the need to penetrate the defences of Moscow, the need to show the Americans that Britain was continuing with development of nuclear weapons, and, driving the whole argument, the need to give more work to Aldermaston.78 It should be noted that Chevaline was a space project as well as a nuclear project.79 By the mid-1970s, defence R&D had grown very considerably, and reached levels, in real terms, higher than those of the early 1960s (see Table 4).

Table 4: Government funding of Defence and Civil R&D, 1960-1975. (constant 1985 £ millions)

Defence R&D Civil Total Intramural

1960 1,748 - - 1965 1,720 689* 1,543 1970 1,325 557 1,790 1975 1,820 705 2,315

*1966. Source: David Buck and Keith Hartley, "The Political Economy of Defence R&D: Burden or Benefit?", in Richard Coopey et al (eds.), Defence Science and Technology: Adjusting to Change, Harwood, 1993, pp. 13-44, Tables 2.1, 2.3, 2.4.

Mintech's civil research establishments were far from being immune from cuts, and towards the end of the 1960s there a was a major reconsideration of the structure and role of these

77 Crossman, Diaries, p. 309. 78 "The Ministry of Technology, 1964-1970" [Witness Seminar], Contemporary Record, vol. 5, 1991. pp. 128-48, esp. pp. 139-42. John Simpson, The Independent Nuclear State: The United States, Britain and the Military Atom, Macmillan, London, 1986; Zuckerman, Monkeys, chapter 32. 79 Philip Gummett, "Defence Research Policy", in M. Goldsmith (ed.), UK Science Policy, London, 1984, pp. 64-65.

226 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s establishments. Already in November 1964 Wilson announced that the AEA was to be encouraged to do non-atomic work, and this became possible with the passing of the Science and Technology Act, 1965. Harwell, in particular, did a great deal of work for the private sector.8" The run-down in civil nuclear development work raised the whole question of what to do with the nuclear establishments, and also other civil establishments. Mintech's key theme in 1969 was the stress on "Profit through Technology": MinTech had "gone commercial".81 Mintech proposed hiving off of the laboratories, and merging the AEA into a single British Research and Development Corporation. It is worth noting that the proposed BRDC was significantly larger than any private R&D organisation, even though it excluded the military laboratories. The intention was that BRDC would be funded by one-third coming directly from the government, one-third from contracts from government departments, and one-third from industry. The strong implication was that one-third of the capacity was surplus to government requirements.82 The key point of the proposal was to get the establishments out of the civil service (as the AEA already was), to allow the laboratories to link up with industry, and to establish contractual relations with government departments, in other words a partial privatisation of the national civil laboratories.83 The case of the AEA is both central and instructive. While Benn praised the AEA and the nuclear industry in 1967, by 1969 he had, according to the industry's severest critic and no friend of the left, "seen part of the light" in complaining about the lack of nuclear exports and in proposing to transfer AEA work and staff to the nuclear plant industry. Furthermore, Benn called for the integration of R&D and marketing; as Burn put it: "This was of course new, in the nuclear industry" [original emphasis].84

R&D and economic growth

Overall R&D statistics for a number of countries were prepared from the late 1950s, and especially in the early 1960s. Some countries, notably the USA and Britain, had been assembling R&D data for some time, but through the agency of the OECD many countries began to do so in a systematic way. At the same time comparative economic data were becoming more readily available. These allowed analysis of the relationship between

s" Sec Philip Gummen. Scientists in Whitehall, Manchester. 1980. pp. 129-32. sl Minister of Technology. "Address to Press Conference", 15 January 1969, Benn Archive. 82 Benn, The Engineer, 9 April 1970, p. 11. 83 Ministry of Technology. Industrial Research and Development in Government Laboratories: A New Organisation for the Seventies, London, 1970 [Green Paper]. 84 Burn, Political Economy, p. 174. Burn also noted that Mintech's scientific adviser, Professor Blackett. had long believed that a mistake had been made in the 1950s in concentrating reactor development in the public sector (p. 174).

227 David Edgerton investment in R&D and economie performance. The most straightforward inspection of these figures yielded the uncomfortable conclusion that Britain undertook a great deal of R&D yet had a relatively low rate of economic growth. In 1964 Carter and Williams argued that "It is easy enough to impede growth by excessive research, by having too high a percentage of scientific manpower engaged in adding to the stock of knowledge and too small a percentage engaged in using it. This is the position in Britain".85 In the mid-sixties Bruce Williams showed formally there was no positive correlation between rates of economic growth and R&D/GDP ratios.86 At the very first meeting that Benn chaired of Mintech's Advisory Council on Technology, Williams, Mintech's economic advisor, and a member of the body, presented these conclusions to his Minister.87

The observation of a lack of correlation, if not commonly known in the 1960s, was known to experts and ministers. In 1967, Benn made clear there was no "automatic correlation between the amount spent on research and the rate of economic growth", and went on to show there was no correlation at all between civil R&D expenditure and growth.88 Professor Blackett, Scientific Advisor to Mintech, Deputy Chairman of the Advisory Council on Technology, and President of the Royal Society, told the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology:

Britain has the highest research and development (R&D) expenditure of any country in Europe... she also has, and has had for at least a decade or more, one of the lowest economic growth rates. The unpalatable fact is clearly one of the main reasons for the intense national self-questioning now going on about the organisation of the national deployment of R&D, both that paid for by the Government and that paid for by industry.89

Indeed, in the late 1960s the Central Advisory Council for Science and Technology argued, implicitly but clearly enough, that the British government and British industry were spending too much on R&D in absolute and relative terms.90 It noted, correctly, that "a high level of

85 C. Carter and B.R. Williams, "Government scientific policy and the growth of the British economy", Manchester School, vol. 32, 1964, p. 199. 86 B.R. Williams, "Research and Economic Growth - What Should We Expect?", Minerva, 3, 1964, pp. 57-71. 87 Benn I, 13 July 1966, p. 452. 88 Benn, Government's Policy, p. 2. 89 P.M.S. Blackett, "Understanding Technological Innovation", Science of Science Foundation Newsletter, March 1968. 90 This body first met in January 1967. It was chaired by the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Cabinet, Sir Solly Zuckerman, and reported to the Prime Minister. On the work of this committee, see Zuckerman, Monkeys, Men and Missiles, Chapter 34.

228 77íe "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

R&D is far from being the main key to successful innovation", and that "Capital investment in new productive capacity has not... been matching our outlays on R&D". The report estimated that in manufacturing industry, excluding aircraft, the investment to R&D ratio was 3:1.'" The report suggested an optimum ratio of approximately 5:1.92 Indeed, it also noted what it saw as the high promotion, about one-third, of total Qualified Scientists and Engineers (QSEs) in R&D.93 It noted that "high research-intensiveness is not in itself a good thing. It may represent an uneconomic input of scarce and expensive resources to yield only a small commercial output. As a general goal we should aim at a lower research-intensiveness than at present".94 Asked about the question of investment and R&D ratios in May 1969, Benn answered: "I agree with the recommendation... that more scientists and engineers should be encouraged to go into production, marketing and management in industry, rather than research and development, to ensure a balanced use of scientific and technological resources over all the stages of the innovation chain. This should produce a better ratio between research and development and capital investment".95

By the late 1960s R&D was not considered to be the problem: earlier it had been seen as a problem only in comparison with the USA and the USSR. Britain, and British industry, it could be argued, were by the 1960s undertaking too much R&D. What is clear is that within Mintech, among its key advisers, and within Government, as well as among external aca• demics, there was a strong sense that R&D was not deficient in Britain.96 This was especially true of government-funded R&D. Mintech's actions, not least its increasing emphasis on investment and questions of industrial competence, need to be understood in this light.

If we look at overall patterns of R&D spending in the 1960s, some striking points emerge. The first is that the expenditure of Labour's great technology ministry on R&D fell in real terms between 1966 and 1970. Indeed, there was a rise in its civil R&D spending, but this was mostly consumed by Concorde. R&D spending in aerospace and nuclear energy was lower than when

'" Central Advisory Council for Science and Technology, Technological Innovation in Britain, HMSO, July 1968, p. 9. This was the only report the committee ever published. 92 Ibid., p. 7. 93 Ibid, pp. 10-11. '»Ibid, p. 12. 95 "The Minister of Technology speaks to Design Engineering", Design Engineering, May 1969, p. 30. 96 Lawrence Pilkington, Chairman of Pilkington Brothers, noted the "fallacy" that "R&D expressed as a ratio of turnover", was "really of fundamental significance", and said: "I gravely question that British industry needs more R&D" (The Engineer, 9 April 1970, pp. 14-15). David Landes noted that in the early 1960s British civil R&D, in absolute terms, was running at four times the level of French civil R&D, but that France had the higher growth rate (David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, Cambridge, 1969, pp. 520, 521).

229 David Edgerton

Labour came to power. Overall R&D spending, as a proportion of GDP, fell in Britain during the late 1960s.97 But R&D expenditure remained high. However, in the late 1960s, German and Japanese expenditure, especially by private businesses, surged ahead of that in Britain. Whereas in 1960 Britain was clearly ahead, by 1970 it was falling behind. Remarkably, in 1960 it was argued that Britain spent too little on R&D, and in 1970 too much.

Reflections on contemporary and subsequent analysis

No discussion of Harold Wilson and the 1960-70 government is complete without a reference to the "White Heat", and the establishment of Mintech in 1964. However, the later history of Mintech is ignored by most students of industrial policy (who focus on the DEA and the IRC), and by students of science and technology policy.98 Much of this neglect arises from the confusing nomenclature, especially in relation to subsequent developments. Edward Heath, although widely regarded as the creator of superministries, in fact dismantled Mintech.99 The procurement functions, and warlike R&D, were put into a newly created Procurement Executive in the Ministry of Defence (via a Ministry of Aviation Supply), where they remain. The remainder of Mintech was merged with what Wilson had left of the Board of Trade into a Department of Trade and Industry. Looking back from the post-Heath era it is too easily assumed that Labour's industry ministries were the Board of Trade, the DEA and the IRC, and that all the defence functions were in the Ministry of Defence. Had Mintech been called, say, the Ministry of Industry, Technology, Power and Defence Procurement, the historiography would have been different.100 More straightforwardly, attention to the history of defence

97 In this paper I have not been concerned with privately-funded R&D, but it is worth noting that one of the key arguments for the mergers pushed along by the IRC was the need to create companies large enough to be able to support large R&D programmes. Indeed many of the mergers were between some of the largest British R&D spenders. It is striking that as these mergers happened, British industrially- funded R&D fell, in absolute and relative terms, for the first time since the early 1930s. See my "Research, Development and Competitiveness", in K. Hughes (ed.). The Future of UK Industrial Competitiveness and the Role of Industrial Policy, London, 1994. 98 For a review of the historiography of the Labour government's industrial policy with special reference to the treatment of Mintech, see Richard Coopey, "Industrial Policy in the White Heat of the Scientific Revolution", in Richard Coopey et al (eds.), The Wilson Governments 1964-1970, Pinter, London. 1992, pp. 102-122. 1,9 In 1970 Heath put a free market oriented set of Ministers into Mintech, headed by Geoffrey Rippon; a forced reshuffle arising from the death of the Chancellor later the same year, saw the appointment of John Davies, an interventionist businessman, to Mintech. Three months later, Mintech was restructured into the DTI and was soon to enact the highly interventionist Industry Act, 1972. From late 1972 Peter Walker was Secretary of State. Campbell notes that the DTI under Walker "probably did carry more weight than the Treasury, whose advice Heath was by then disinclined to hear" (Campbell, Heath, p. 314). 100 Heath regarded both the DEA and Mintech as gimmicks, and had planned to put them into the Treasury and the Board of Trade (Campbell, Heath, p. 221). However, between 1964 and 1966 Mintech was in many ways a publicity stunt, thereafter it was not.

230 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s procurement and research would have alerted historians to the distinctiveness of Mintech. Both Wilson and Heath were deeply concerned with the structure of government, and both created superdepartments for industry; these differed mainly in that Mintech included most defence procurement and defence R&D.1"1

There is, however, another important reason for the neglect of Mintech in its latter years. In 1980, David Henderson, commenting on a series of papers at a conference on industrial policy and innovation, noted that most of the policy proposals on offer were not novel, and that the history of even the very recent past was forgotten; people wrote as if industrial performance and R&D had not been a central concern of government for decades. In particular the whole Mintech experience was missing from the policy consciousness. Not surprisingly, he experienced a "disheartening sense of futility and déjà vu".'02 The general point that may be made is that analysts have come to assume that British governments have been incapable of, and never have, pursued an active industrial and innovation policy. The whole model of decline believed in by many 1980s analysts - that Britain did not have a "developmental state" - implies that the real Mintech (as opposed to an insincere initiative of 1964) could not have existed. And yet it did exist.

To the neglect of the military, and the failure to recognise the interventionist failure of the British state, may be added a failure to come to grips with the essentials of the economics of British R&D. The dominant mode of interpretation of the postwar history of British R&D is one I will call the "misallocation model". This argues that while Britain had high levels of R&D, this was misallocated to defence and prestige projects. A particular version of the thesis was the "overcommitment" to R&D thesis of the American analyst Merton Peck. Using data from the 1950s and early 1960s Peck noted, in the Brookings Report on the British economy published in 1968, that Britain had the highest research intensity in the capitalist world, even though it had only an average number of scientists and engineers. Peck noted that Britain spent a great deal on military R&D, on basic research, and that it had an industrial sector in which research intensive industries were especially strong. Furthermore, Britain had a low proportion of scientists and engineers in industry, and a low proportion of engineers to scientists and engineers. Peck proposed cutting back the aircraft industry in order to release resources for industrial R&D within industry, noting also that this would also require an increase in non-R&D technical personnel. Peck was however

1111 Tony Benn became Secretary of State for Industry in 1974, but this was from being a return to the Mintech of 1970. Not only was defence procurement and R&D gone, there was now a separate Department of Energy, to which Benn would later be transferred. 102 David Henderson. "Comment", in Charles Carter (ed.). Industrial Policy and Innovation, London, 1981, p. 173.

231 David Edgerton ambiguous as to whether there was a shortage of the right kind of R&D.103 Later analysts became convinced this was the case.

The most refined version of the argument I will call Freeman's Paradox. For Freeman there was a British paradox: British industrial R&D (that is R&D undertaken in industry) was "apparently" higher than that of all capitalist countries other than the USA in the 1960s, and yet Britain had a low rate of growth. Freeman studied the distribution of industrial R&D across sectors, and resolved the paradox by pointing out that British industry spent a very high proportion on government-funded and aeronautical R&D. The implication was that subtracting government and aeronautical R&D would have left British industry with less R&D than Germany or Japan, and as a consequence the British economy grew at a slower rate.104 This interpretation, in one form or another, is quite standard in the literature.105

It is important to remember, however, that the misallocation model was central to Harold Wilson's arguments in 1963, and was also implicit in Mintech's policy of shifting money away from defence and prestige projects. Indeed, one particularly clear version of the misallocation theses was influentially presented by Mintech's former Controller of Industrial Technology, leuan Maddock, in 1975. He argued that the distribution of Government R&D funds was quite different from that of industrial output.106 The model implied that R&D funding should be distributed fairly across all industrial sectors.107

The most important feature of the misallocation model is that it implies there a was a shortage of R&D in Britain in economically significant areas. This assumption has, however,

103 Merton J. Peck, "Science and Technology", in Richard E. Caves et al., Britain's Economic Prospects, Washington, 1968, pp. 448-83. This paper does not discuss the Labour government's policy. 104 Christopher Freeman, "Technical Innovation and British Trade Performance", in FT. Blackaby (ed.), De-Industrialisation, Heinemann, London, 1978. 105 See, for example, K. Smith, British Economic Crisis, Harmondsworth, 1982; M. Distenfass, The Decline of Industrial Britain 1870-1980, London, 1992; N.F.R. Crafts, "Economic Growth", and M.W. Kirby, "Supply Side Management", both in N.F.R. Crafts and Nicholas Woodward (eds.), The British Economy since 1945, Oxford, 1991; and Robert Milward, "Industrial and Commercial Performance since 1950", in R. Floud and D.N. McCloskey, The Economic Histoiy of Britain since 1700, 2nd ed., vol. 3, Cambridge, 1994. Here I am only taking examples to make the point that this analysis has been accepted almost universally; many other sources may be cited. The argument is derived very largely from Freeman, "Technical Innovation". 106 Sir leuan Maddock, "Science, Technology and Industry", Proceedings of the Royal Society London, PtA, 345, 1975, pp. 295-326. 107 There was no reason why there should not be a wide variation in research intensities: R&D inputs, like all sorts of other inputs, vary widely across industries (cf. Berrick Saul, "There's more to growth than R&D", New Scientist, 23 September 1976, pp. 633-35).

232 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

been challenged. Saul noted in 1979 that "There are those who have argued that expenditure on R&D has been wrongly directed towards the so-called 'high-technology industries' and that it should have been spread more widely over industries in general. The evidence for this is not very strong". Saul was pointing to the lack of positive correlation between economic growth and R&D expenditure.108 Bruce Williams' conclusions should not be dismissed on the grounds that his figures included defence R&D (even though Williams himself thought one reason for the lack of correlation might be that his figures included defence R&D).109 In fact studies from the early 1970s show there was no positive correlation between civil R&D and growth in the 1960s.110 This is in fact a general phenomenon: the OECD stated in 1992 that "The proposition that investment in R&D and technological progress are essential to future growth has not yet been conclusively empirically demonstrated".111 It has been suggested that even in 1967 the absolute amounts of industrially funded R&D in Britain, Germany and Japan were about the same, while expressed as a proportion of manufacturing output Britain was well ahead.112 This suggests strongly that lack of bread-and-butter R&D was not a problem. As we have seen, Mintech and its key advisers recognised this point, and in• creasingly argued that R&D was not really the problem at all.

The second problem is that the misallocation model was, in part, Mintech's own model: Tony Benn, as we have seen, constantly emphasised the policy of shifting away from defence and from prestige projects.

More to our point Labour and Mintech acted on it: they cancelled defence projects, reduced de• fence R&D expenditure, launched no new Concordes (except the RB211 ) and tried to shift state R&D resources to non-glamorous areas. The Labour government was tackling what historians have seen as the great vices of postwar technology policy. For that they deserve some credit.

108 B. Saul, "Research and development in British industry from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1960s", in T.C. Smout (ed.), The Search for Wealth and Stability, London, 1979, pp. 135-36. 109 B.R. Williams, Investment, Technology and Growth, London, 1967. 1111 R.C.O. Matthews, "The contribution of science and technology to economic development", in B.R. Williams (ed.). Science and Technology in Economic Growth, Stockton Press, London, 1973, pp. 7-8. See also C.T Taylor and Z.A. Silberston, The Economic Impact of the Patent System: A Study of the British Experience, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973; and K. Norris and R. Vaisey, The Economics of Science and Technology, London, 1973. 111 OECD, Technology and the Economy: the Key Relationships, OECD, Paris, 1992, p. 184. Terence Kealy too has shown there is no positive correlation (Terence Kealy, "The Economic Laws of Research", Science and Technology Policy, February 1994). 112 See Edgerton, "Research, Development and Competitiveness". I make the argument more broadly in Science, Technology and the British Industrial "Decline ". See, for some other figures, P. Gummett, Scientists in Whitehall, Manchester, 1980, Table 2.3, p. 58.

233 David Edgerton

There is also a third problem: as Berrick Saul pointed out, there was no reason why there should not be a wide variation in research intensities; R&D inputs, like all sorts of other inputs, varied widely across industries. If one was going to have independent British aircraft one would need to do a great deal of aeronautical R&D.113 Saul is pointing to the fact that economic arguments do not point to the need for equal treatment for all industries, and that political arguments have a quite legitimate place in decisionmaking about technology. But under Labour, as we have seen, there was no overriding belief in misallocation: the conviction also arose that R&D was not really the problem at all. The sixties saw rapid changes in the understanding of the economic role of R&D; there was a rapid learning process taking place and as a consequence contemporary arguments are often richer than subsequent commentators' analyses.

David Henderson has coined an illuminating and suggestive phrase to characterise the dominant politics of technology in the postwar years - "bipartisan technological chauvi• nism".114 There was indeed in many sectors what Samuel Brittain was to call with respect to state support of the arms trade, "a near perfect fusion of the right wing belief in 'my country right or wrong' and the left wing belief in industrial intervention and subsidy".115 It certainly existed - note the debate on Concorde production financing discussed above - but we should be careful not to overlook the partisan political dimensions of technology policy: Conser• vatives were especially supportive of aircraft and space technologies.116 One can find many expressions of the right wing techno-nationalism in the literature on aircraft and space. This strand of literature argues that socialist governments, in particular, have run down the key national technologies, with negative consequences for economic performance.117

By contrast, socialist technological chauvinism has been critical of military technology, and technology for the rich, and argued for the centralised planning of science and technology for the common good. It has also argued that British business, and/or the British economic system, has not given enough support to R&D. These themes were strongly voiced by Harold Wilson

113 Berrick Saul, "There's more to growth than R&D", New Scientist, 23 September 1976, pp. 633-5. 114 See his Innocence and Design, London, 1986. 115 Samuel Brittain, "Lessons of Iraqgate", Financial Times, 23 November 1992. 116 De Maria and Krige ("ELDO's sad parable", p. 129) note that Conservatives opposed Labour's hostility to ELDO, for example. 117 Perhaps most cogently in Roy Sherwood's Superpower Britain, Willingham Press, Cambridge, 1989. Sherwood sees Britain in the 1950s on a technological par with the USA and the USSR, but argues that it lost its position from the late 1950s through cancellations by both Conservative and Labour politicians unversed in science and technology, and the malign influence of a classically-trained civil service.

234 The "White Heat" Revisited: The British Government and Technology in the 1960s

in 1963-64. Such ideas were developed in the 1930s around the left wing celebration of the Soviet model by J. D. Bernal and others, and were extended in the 1940s by Labour- sympathising scientists. We know much about this tradition, and indeed, its own assumptions have greatly affected the historiography of science and technology policy.118 One common way of understanding the experience of the 1960s is to see it as the failed application of "Bernalism".119 But in neglecting non-socialist technological enthusiasm, and military technology and military agencies, the literature misses the central pillar of state support for science and technology, and what was distinctive about Labour's policy.

While the ideology of commentary on science and technology is wrongly neglected, and it is vital to recognise the partisan dimensions of technology policy, a purely party political and parliamentary orientation will miss most of what is interesting and important in science and technology policy. The important politics of technology were not especially public, much less parliamentary. There is little linkage between the political salience of issues, and the scale and scope of the state's technological activity. The state machine for promoting science and technology was huge and powerful and was centred on organisations -the Ministry of Supply (1945-1959), the Ministry of Aviation (1959-1967) and the late Mintech (1967-1970) - which were not at the centre of political debate or historiographical reflection. The programmes of these ministries lasted much longer than the average length of a government.120 The very public story of Harold Wilson and the White Heat, and the early years of Mintech do not exhaust the history of technology in British politics after the Second World War, or even in the 1960s. A new macrohistory of science and technology, even of government policy for scientific and technological innovation, can tell us that there is a lot to discover, and that the public account and the historical accounts derived from them, are often misleading in surprisingly important ways. There is no better illustration than the fact that in the early 1960s a supposed lack of British R&D was a central political issue, while in 1970, when Japan and Germany had

118 See David Horner, "Scientists, Trade Unions and Labour Movement Policies for Science and Technology: 1947-1964", 2 vols., Aston University Ph. D., 1986; and Fred Steward and David Wield, "Science, Planning and the State", in G. McLennan et al. State and Society in Contemporary Britain, Polity, Cambridge, 1984, pp. 176-203. 119 See PG. Werskey, The Visible College, London. 1978. 120 Critics like Burns, Jewkes and Henderson were therefore right to focus on general technocratic ideologies, the nature of the state, and the nature of government-industry relations. Cf. Duncan Burn, Nuclear Power and the Energy Crisis: Politics and the Atomic Industry, 1978; John Jewkes, Government and High Technology, Institute of Economic Affairs, Occasional Paper n. 37, 1972; P.D. Henderson, "Two British Errors: Their Probable Size and some Possible Lessons", Oxford Economic Papers, vol. 29, 1977, pp. 186-94; and Innocence and Design, London, 1986.

235 David Edgerton overtaken Britain in R&D, it was not. There was much more to the White Heat than met the eye of both contemporaries and historians.121

The alternative account of the White Heat presented above is linked to an alternative account of the history of British technology. When Labour came into office in 1964 it was not gov• erning a nation which had neglected technological innovation. On the contrary, compared with Western Europe and Japan, the British government and British private industry were very large investors in R&D. What Labour learnt was that high R&D expenditure was no guaran• tee of economic success; indeed, over-investment could be detrimental to growth. In contrast to its policies for technological innovation, Labour increased spending on higher education and scientific research (largely in universities) very substantially. But here too we should beware any inference to a lack of science or graduates when Labour came to power. Britain was without doubt the premier scientific nation outside the USA. That is probably well known. Less well known is the fact that graduation rates for scientists, and also for engineers, were very high by international standards.122 In retrospect, it seems extraordinary that Labour could have made such an issue out of Britain's supposed technical backwardness. Perhaps that in itself is an indication of the centrality of technology in British politics: only a profoundly technological nation could harbour the technocratic rhetoric of Harold Wilson.

121 One theme we cannot consider here is the perverse similarity between the 1960s and the 1980s, although we have noted the entrance of market considerations in technology policy, and the proposals to hive off research laboratories. It is also noteworthy that the late 1980s and early 1990s saw falls in defence expenditure of a substantial scale for the first time since the late 1960s. In January 1970 Tony Benn noted a "tremendous speech" in which Keith Joseph, later to be Mrs Thatcher's Secretary of State for Industry, "denounced the idea that Government and industry could work close together and said that competition was 'magic', and technocracy inefficient. It was a very interesting speech to read because it did throw into relief the distinction between his view and mine, at the same time as underlining cer• tain similarities, in that I was pushing for the efficiency of industry and perhaps underestimating the human factors. I felt that my position must look near enough to his to alienate the students at Keele [where Benn had made a speech] the way it did." (Benn II, 26 January 1970, p. 229).

122 For evidence on this point see Edgerton, Science, Technology and the British Industrial "Decline".

236 4. Notes on a New Epistemology

Material and Social Conditions in a Historical Epistemology of Scientific Thinking Wolfgang Lefèvre

Since the 19th century, science played a crucial role in modem societies, not only in pro• duction and economics, but also in the field of politics. Politics builds on knowledge and insight, and this distinguishes political power from arbitrariness or violence.

Gaining knowledge of a natural process that might be useful for purposes of production is a complex activity. However, to gain knowledge of social processes that might be useful for purposes of political decision is even more complex. Gaining knowledge of the social activity of science itself belongs to the latter category.

Philosophy, history and sociology of science do not provide a coherent picture of science. On the one hand, philosophy of science, despite all the scepticism about rationality in recent times, still tries to uncover the hidden thread of rationality within the scientific enterprise and its development. On the other hand, history and sociology of science show how science is embedded in and deeply dependent on changing social contexts so that we cannot any longer hope to uncover anything like a universal logic of the development of science. Given this situation, it seems to make sense for an historian of science to look for elements of the scientific process that may serve as bridge-builders between these approaches. Candidates for such elements are what I will call the material means of thinking.

To clarify the concept of material means of thinking, I first propose to distinguish between material and social components of culture. By way of an example I will then outline the significance of this distinction for the understanding of the historical development of science. Then I will deal in more detail with the connections between such material means and knowl• edge, scientific as well as non-scientific. Finally, I will discuss some of the consequences concerning the problems of relativism, contingency, and coherence in the historical development of science.

1. Material and social components of culture

In recent discussions, the term "social conditions" is often used in a very broad sense, encompassing politics, economy, institutions, social structures of communication, domination, discrimination, mentality, as well as techniques and the material means of production - in

239 Wolfgang Lefèvre short, all components of civilisation. I propose to call the totality of components of a civilisation at a given historical stage "a culture", and to distinguish within a culture between its material and social components. Instances of the material components of a culture are tools, machines, technical equipment, as well as agriculturally used soils, plants, and animals, materials such as stones, bronze, iron or plastics, and even climate, access to oceans, etc. Instances of social components of a culture are the division of labour, the forms of exchange of commodities, forms of organisation within industries or institutions, the relations between functional groups, as well as the social structures among, for instance, country dwellers and city dwellers, various ethnic groups, women and men, adults and children, etc.

Perhaps we can define them as follows:

- Material components of culture are natural or processed material objects that are utilised by a civilisation at a given cultural stage in the social process of production and reproduction.

- Social components of culture are the forms of relationships and interactions between individual members or groups of members of a civilisation at a given cultural stage in the social process of production and reproduction.

These material and social components are of course not independent of one another. Material components are affected by the social conditions of their utilisation, and social components are conditioned by the material ones. Thus, it is often not easy to say to which of the two components a cultural phenomenon belongs. Take for instance skills, techniques or proce• dures in a given culture. Obviously they depend on social factors like tradition, division of labour, discrimination etc. On the other hand, it is equally obvious that there are no skills, techniques or procedures as such, but that they are always embedded in the handling of material objects in the given culture. Their intimate association with these objects would even allow to list them among the material components.

Yet there are good reasons to distinguish between the two kinds of cultural components. The material components cannot be reduced to the social ones nor vice versa. The first alternative would produce a view of culture purely in terms of human interaction (portraying, for instance, the differences between stone and metal technology ultimately as a matter of social convention). And the second alternative would lead to naturalistic or technological deter• minism (for instance by interpreting the emergence of the state solely as the outcome of agriculture in the previous period).

Before turning to the specific material conditions of science, let me now briefly discuss an example that may help to gain a first idea of the significance of this distinction between material and social conditions for the present context. The example will be the Pythagorean theorem.

240 Material and Social Conditions in a Historical Epistemology of Scientific Thinking

2. Why does the Pythagorean theorem hold true?

If it is true that we can ascribe this theorem to the Greeks and more specifically to the so-called School of Pythagoras, then the social and even political background from which it sprang looks indeed very strange: Was this School a secret society aiming to seize power in several Greek colonial cities in southern Italy by coup d'état! Or was it a private religious society? Were its fellows members of the old Greek aristocracy or of the new class of tradesmen? Were theorems like this one means of initiation and of keeping together the members of this society, and are we thus confronted with a classical example of social constructivism?

On the other hand we have to establish that the Pythagorean theorem did not lose its validity with the eclipse of the School of Pythagoras, nor with the end of classical Greek antiquity, and not even with the transmission of the theorem from one culture to another (European or non-European). So it seems to be clear that we cannot ascribe its validity to the influence of persons or groups, to rhetorical force, to the permanence of institutions of great authority, or to cultural imperialism. The force of the theorem is not conceivable as a kind of social force. The out-dated and today widely contested distinction between context of discovery and context of justification seems to be worth rethinking. If we try to find out what it is that renders the theorem valid independently of specific social and cultural circumstances, it will seem obvious that an empiricist understanding of the theorem is doomed to fail. Moreover, I would like to claim - though I cannot discuss this adequately here - that we neither would find a convincing answer, if we were to return once more to speculations about cognitive universals, such as Popper's Third World and the like.

In its original shape the Pythagorean theorem is only comprehensible within the framework of the geometry of Euclid. This science of the properties and relations of space is based on exploration of geometrical constructions by ruler and compass on the one hand, while its theoretical form on the other is accomplished by the use of natural language as means of deduction after having determined by definitions the meaning of the key notions which represent the components of that constructive activity. Thus it turns out that the Pythagorean theorem can be regarded as the result of reflection on a geometrical constructive practice using the means available and as the result of a reflective use of natural language.

Hence, coming back to the question of its validity independently of specific social and cultural circumstances, it is possible to state: If there are social conditions which allow us to explore space by constructions precisely by means of ruler and compass and to build a framework of inference precisely by means of natural language, then of course not everybody will discover the Pythagorean theorem, but once discovered, everybody will inevitably come to the con• clusion, that the Pythagorean theorem is correct. Certain given means of geometrical con• struction and inference thus tum out to be the ground on which the validity of the theorem rests.

241 Wolfgang Lefèvre

These means of the geometry of Euclid are an instance of what I call the material means of thinking - of scientific as well as of non-scientific thinking. Among the material conditions of science, the material means of thinking deserve special attention by historians of science.

3. Material means and knowledge

Turning now to the relation between material means and knowledge, I have two preliminary remarks concerning the notions of material means and of ends in general.

1) When speaking in the following of applications of means, and of ends which are the objects of these means, I am not referring to the means and ends of an isolated individual, but to those which have been accepted or have even acquired a fixed form in a society. Furthermore, when speaking of knowledge in the following, I am referring only to social knowledge, that is, knowledge which is communicated in a society and is passed on from one generation to the next. The important point is that always social conditions are involved, whatever their historical specificity.

2) Nothing deserves the name of a means that is not used or intended to be used for fulfilling an end. Thus there is a sense in which the end determines the means. However, the end cannot determine whether or not the means is suitable to achieve the end. Furthermore, the end for which a thing is originally chosen or produced as an appropriate means does not include all the others ends, which may be realised by this means, that is, by uncovering those ends in the process of handling the means under different circumstances.

Presupposing this, the means turns out to determine these newly uncovered ends - it is this determining nature of the means to which the term "material" is intended to point. I claim that it is this very material nature of the means that is an essential source for the growth of knowledge. Of course, knowledge is always presupposed when applying a means in a given way, for instance knowledge of its make-up or the way it functions when it is used to achieve the end in question. However, in the process of application of the material means new ways of utilisation due to its material nature can be discovered which are not deter• mined by the original ends. It is in this process of application of the material means that new experiences may occur and new purposes emerge. These, in turn, stimulate improve• ments of the original means, which in a renewed process of application may lead to renewed experiences and purposes, and finally, to the invention of new means. Some of the latter will be crucial for the opening up in unforeseen ways of a new horizon of possibilities for man's physical and mental activities.

Tc epeat, this development is an historical process that presupposes social communication and the passing on of both, the new experiences and the improved material means. However,

242 Material and Social Conditions in a Historical Epistemology of Scientific Thinking this coevolution of material means and knowledge is fuelled by an element of surplus knowledge, which results from applying new means, as compared to the knowledge necessary for its invention in the first place.

4. Material means of thinking

Among the material means we can distinguish between means of production and means of anticipation or planning. The latter may be called material means of thinking. Maps, drawings, geometrical constructions, counting means, writing systems, etc., come to mind. What is true of material means in general is also true of these material means of thinking. However, it should be added that it is specifically these means of thinking which are responsible for establishing a horizon of what is accomplishable by thought, and thereby also setting the boundaries to this process.

Presuppose social conditions favourable to the realisation of the spectrum of possibilities inherent in a means at a certain stage of development. Then it depends specifically on these material means of thinking to what extent and in what way the experiences which emerge from handling the means of production and of thinking themselves can be transformed into established knowledge; and, last but not least, what systems of knowledge, that is, what deep structures of inference, can be built.

5. Material means of scientific thinking

It is common practice to call observational instruments or experimental designs material means of the sciences. It is less common to so designate also languages, symbolic systems, or algorithms. But let's look for instance at numerical notations. In a culture where a system of numerical notation is in use that does not include a place value system, we do not find algorithms for multiplication and division which are in any sense comparable to ours. Therefore, I would propose to call also seemingly non-physical things like systems of signs, syntax or grammar, material means of thinking. Like other material means of thinking, they do in fact determine what results scientists can achieve and even what results are conceivable as reasonably likely.

Like systems of numerical notation, there are many material means of scientific thinking which are not invented by scientists or for scientific purposes, but emerge and are developed in practical contexts, and are used in various domains of planning, administration, etc. It is the use of such means for purposes of cognition that renders them scientific means. To return to the earlier example: The inventors of Greek geometry did not perform geometrical constructions in order to draw a blue-print or something else involving a practical applica• tion, but in order to gain insight in the regularities of constructions by the given means.

243 Wolfgang Lefèvre

In the same way as discussed above for material means in general, the material means of scientific thinking in particular are important sources for development of thinking. How• ever, there is a significant difference. In practical contexts, the use of means, and thus the exploration of the possibilities given by these means, is narrowly restricted by the practical purposes involved. In science, on the contrary, the purpose being pursued is to explore what knowledge can be gained by using these means. With science, the realisation of potential knowledge inherent in given means is transformed into a systematically performed enterprise.

Let me add a short remark about the importance of these means for our historical understanding of past systems of knowledge. The material means available to intellectual problem solving in a given historical situation are the key to reconstructing the nature and character of the accomplishment to which the historical sources testify. The reconstruction of what means were actually available in a given historical situation reveals the basis on which the accomplishment rests, and prevents us from presupposing abilities that are, in the most cases, mere anachronistic projections. The principle of historians of science - to assume as little as possible beyond what is testified in the sources - here finds its theoretical underpinning.

6. The historical development of scientific thinking

In discussing the question why the Pythagorean theorem holds true, I mentioned that the distinction between context of discovery and context of justification may be worth rethinking. Returning to this, I can now emphasise three points:

- What is generally understood to be a proof or an item of evidence depends of course on social conditions, in particular on the image of science in a given historical situation, which determines the understanding of what is truth, objectivity, and so on. However, looking at any given theory, its validity depends on the framework of inference given with the system of knowledge to which the theory belongs. This framework itself is determined by the material means of thinking which form the basis of the system of knowledge. Thus it can be claimed: Theories are justifiable only with respect to certain given material means of thinking.

- Obviously, the material means of thinking are subjected to historical change. They emerge under given historical conditions and vanish or are replaced by new ones under other historical conditions. Thus, the basis of scientific validity depends on historical entities. Scientific validity itself displays an historical character.

- The distinction between internal and external factors of science does not apply to these material means of thinking. It is not sufficient to say that the sciences are "embedded" in the material culture of a given society in a given historical situation. With respect to the links

244 Material and Social Conditions in a Historical Epistemology of Scientific Thinking

between thinking and its material means, one may state that the very core of science as a conceptual enterprise depends on things that in the first place are genuinely historical and secondly are inseparable from that material culture.

Well then, what is really gained by this new understanding of the old distinction between context of discovery and context of justification? On the one hand, it seems to save the validity of scientific theories from being dissolved into mere beliefs produced by processes of social communication. For, according to the distinction between social and material components of culture discussed at the beginning, the material means used in a society cannot be reduced to social factors and this is also true of the scientific validity resting on those means. On the other hand, relating scientific knowledge and material means of thinking in this way, seems only to result in a new stage for the old play of relativism. We have now truth, relative not to certain given social interactions, but to certain means.

If it is correct that scientific truth depends on a given material means of thinking, and if these means undergo historical change, then the crucial question arises of how the historical process of transformation from one set of means to another may be understood. The answer to this question is crucial for whether or not it is meaningful to speak of an historical development of science instead of considering this change a mere series of replacements of mutually indifferent approaches to knowledge. This concerns not only the process of transmitting systems of knowledge from one cultural tradition to another, but also the famous problem of incom• mensurability, which has been discussed by philosophers of science since Kuhn.

Studying the replacement of material means by new ones in the course of history, we will find in most cases that the new ones allow us to perform tasks equivalent to the earlier ones. To return for a last time to the example of geometry: The establishment of analytical geometry in the 17th and 18th century didn't lead to the loss of any of the achievements of the old Euclidean geometry. Since the new algebraic means applied to curves of higher degree, the narrow Euclidean basis of geometrical constructions was widened and at the same time its potentials were re-established within the new conceptual structure. The building of this new structure included a reconstruction of the old one, based on the new conditions given by the new material means of thought. To the extent that this is an appropriate portrayal of the ways in which different traditions of thinking were integrated or the replacement of systems of knowledge took place in history, I think it is justified to speak of a truly historical development of science.

We will then encounter not only continuity and coherence within such historical developments, but this also explains why and to what extent historical reconstructions of former systems of knowledge are possible at all. Furthermore, we may then be able to uncover certain regularities which govern such processes of integration and replacement. But

245 Wolfgang Lefèvre surely, we will not find laws of development, which allow us to derive the development of science from inviolable principles or to predict the outcome of this development in the future. The historical development of science is a process that possesses both features: It is lawful and contingent at the same time.

246 Euroscientia Conferences

Information Note

Euroscientia Conferences, formerly "The European Science and Technology Forum" were created in 1994 by the European Commission in order to stimulate reflection and debate on science and technology on a European scale. To this aim, they provide a framework for conferences and studies on subjects related to historical, cultural, ethical, social, but also economic and political aspects of science and technology.

The originality of the Euroscientia Conferences, when compared with other initiatives in this field, is to address the questions dealt with specifically within their European dimension: attention is concentrated on the particularity of the situation in the field concerned in Europe in comparison with other parts of the world; the differences between European countries and regions; the aspects related to the process of building Europe; the needs and possibilities of collaboration at European level, etc.

Over the years, the European Union has developed its own research policy. Conceived in order to both supplement and support national research efforts, this policy is implemented through large collaborative research programmes co-ordinated within the so-called pluriannual "Research and Technological Development Framework Programmes". The basic principles of these programmes are: stimulating the creation of collaborative networks across Europe; supporting joint research projects associating universities, enterprises and research centres from different European countries; and promoting the mobility of researchers and exchanges.

The activities of the Euroscientia Conferences supplement the European Union research programmes by providing intellectual and conceptual basis for action and helping to strengthen and improve the quality of the relationship between science and society at European level.

The conferences organised in this framework put together a broad spectrum of people from different horizons: historians, sociologists, philosophers, specialists in "science studies", researchers in natural and exact sciences as well as in social sciences and humanities, people in charge of research and policy-decision makers, representatives from the industrial and entrepreneurial world and citizens' associations, etc. Organised by national or European institutions, each conference draws together between 100 and 200 people. The proceedings are systematically published and broadly disseminated.

247

Agenda of the Euroscientia Conferences

1994

Title Place Date Organisation

"Scientific Expertise in European London 14-15 September 1994 London School of Economics and Public Policy Debate" Political Science "Science and Languages in Europe" Paris 14- 16 November 1994 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - Centre Alexandre Koyré "Science and Power: the Historical Firenze 8- 10 December 1994 Istituto e Museo di Storia della Foundations of Research Policies in Scienza Europe" "Science, Philosophy and the History Paris 9- 10 December 1994 Association Diderot of Sciences in Europe" "Science in School and the Future of Lisboa 14-15 December 1994 Instituto de Prospectiva Scientific Culture in Europe"

1995

Title Place Date Organisation

"History of European Scientific and Firenze 9-11 November 1995 European University Institute Technological Cooperation" "Science, Law and Ethics in Europe" Paris 8-9 December 1995 Association Diderot

1996

Title Place Date Organisation

'The Future of Postgraduate Education Firenze 17- 18 June 1996 European University Institute in Europe" "Images and Science Education in Paris 3-4 October 1996 CNRS Images/Media FEMIS Europe"

1997

Title Place Date Organisation

"Industrial History and Technological London 20-21 March 1997 The Newcomen Society Development in Europe" "Interdisciplinarity and the Organisation Cambridge 24 - 26 September 1997 Academia Europaea of Knowledge in Europe"

249 Title Place Date Organisation

"Sciences, Myths and Religions in Royaumont 13- 14 October 1997 Association Diderot Europe" "Science and Technology Awareness Roma 20-21 November 1997 Hypothesis in Europe: New Insights" "European Science and Scientists Amsterdam 2-3 December 1997 Royal Netherlands Academy of between Freedom and Arts and Sciences/ALLEA Responsibility"

1998

Title Place Date Organisation

"Writing and Science in Europe" Nice 12- 14 March 1998 Association Anais "Electronic Communication and Darmstadt 15- 17 April 1998 Academia Europaea Research in Europe" "History of Science and Technology in Strasbourg 25-26 June 1998 Université Louis Pasteur/ALLEA Education and Training in Europe" "Science, Public Policy and Health in Barcelona 25 - 28 November 1998 Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Postwar European History"

1999

Title Place Date Organisation

"Cultural Identities and Natural Bologna 16-17 April 1999 Association Transcultura Sciences in Europe"

250 European Commission

Science and Power: the Historical Foundations of Research Policies in Europe

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities

2000 — 250 pp. — 17 χ 24 cm

ISBN 92-828-9351-0

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