Quakers in Science and Industry: Being an Account of the Quaker Contributions to Science and Industry During the 17th and 18th Centuries (review)

46Bulletin of Friends Historical Association and he gives a fair and candid picture of a complex situation. Not the least of the merits of the work are its comprehensive bibliographical notes covering thirty-six pages and offering a convenient key to the decentralized records of the Society of Friends. There is much more to this book than its title implies; it is a valuable commentary on Quaker history down to 1865. University of PennsylvaniaRoy F. Nichols Quakers in Science and Industry: Being an Account of the Quaker Contributions to Science and Industry During the 17th and 18th Centuries. By Arthur Raistrick. New York: Philosophical Library. 1950. 349 pages. 16 illustrations. 10 charts of family and business connections. $6.00. A RTHUR RAISTRICK is both a Friend and a scientist. For many years he has been lecturer in Applied Geology (Engineering and Mining) at King's College, Durham University. He has produced some fifty research papers on coal and coal technology and on glacial and post-glacial geology. He has received the Lyell Fund Award of the Geological Society. In 1938 he was president of the Friends Historical Society, and in 1945-46 he was a research Fellow at Woodbrooke. In turning to Quakers in Science and Industry, Friends will follow with great interest the course of Truth in the lives of the successful businessmen and scientists who emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from the spiritual family of the Society of Friends. Where did compromise take its toll? And where did Truth resist temptation and break through uninspired routines to stimulate new growth in the Society of Friends and in science and industry? The author arranges his documented account under five headings: (1) The Quakers (origins; manner of life as citizens and traders under persecution) ; (2) Quakers in Trade and Industry (traders, merchants, ironmasters, mining companies, and workers with brass, copper, china, agricultural implement, public gas-lighting, chocolate, type, chemicals, drugs, roads, canals, and railroads) ; (3) Quakers in Science and Medicine (clock and instrument makers, botanists and naturalists, doctors) ; (4) Quakers in Banking; and (5) Summary and Conclusions. There are many lovable persons in this book, who did interesting and creative things in the spirit of seekers. Daniel Quare, who on conscientious grounds had refused appointment as the king's watchmaker , had access to men of the greatest rank of England and Europe, as evidenced by the lists of attendere at the weddings (after the manner of Friends) of his children. Drs. Fothergill and Lettsom were "the foci of a group of many Quakers" and non-Friends with whose help they promoted significant projects and movements at home and abroad. Book Reviews47 John Bartram, brilliant American botanist, was disowned by Friends because of "his rejection of the miraculous in religion" but "he continued to attend the Friends Meeting." There are references to the convincements of Friends: e.g., "Charles Harford, a soap boiler, who had become a Friend by the ministry of John Camm. . . ." One feels the power of the early Friends' movement. And this chronicle of the exhaustion of that movement in worldly success is a sobering one. As Friends became wealthy, they were conscious that the wealth came to them "unsought" and "in no way based upon the exploitation of their fellow men." "The respect of the world for the Quaker banker and industrialist, based on the virtues of the Quaker character, was the antidote to any possible revolution." "The employer emerged more and more into a world of responsibility and wealth, into which the employee had little or no entry." This very readable book makes available to us a vast amount of historical detail. It will be especially fruitful if it leads us to apply ourselves to the Friends' revolution as effectively as Friends applied themselves to the Industrial Revolution. Soil Survey Division, Wisconsin GeologicalFrancis D. Hole and Natural History Survey. Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion, with Special Reference to the XVII and XVIII Centuries. By R. A. Knox. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1950. viii, 622 pages. $6.00. ?G HE EARLY FRIENDS — so we like to think — were mystics. The term has pleasing connotations: it suggests serenity, purity, gentleness...