In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Experiencing Nature: Proceedings of a Conference in Honor of Allen G. Debus
  • Lawrence M. Principe
Paul H. Theerman and Karen Hunger Parshall, eds. Experiencing Nature: Proceedings of a Conference in Honor of Allen G. Debus. The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, no. 58. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. xiii + 307 pp. $108.00; Nlg. 175.00; £65.00.

This volume represents selected proceedings of a conference held in honor of Allen G. Debus at the University of Chicago in 1991. The book’s contents are so wide-ranging that it cannot be said to have any discernible theme, which renders comprehensive statements about the volume impossible. It contains nine papers: one by Debus himself, seven by some of his former students, and one by his advisor at Harvard, I. Bernard Cohen. These contributions range in time-frame from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, and cover topics from natural magic to Darwinian evolution—a diversity that is, if anything, testimony to Debus’s wide impact on the history of science.

Cohen’s essay, the keynote address of the conference, looks at the ways in which ideas from the natural sciences have been propagated in the social sciences, with the effect that social systems have come to be seen in terms of physical or biological systems. Michael and Phyllis Walton explore the deployment of Kabbalah and number mysticism in the works of the Elizabethan magus and geometer John Dee, and of his younger contemporary Johannes Kepler. In a lively and highly entertaining piece, “Dancing with Spiders,” Martha Baldwin deals with the terpsichorean treatment of tarantula-bite victims, showing how seventeenth-century physicians dealt extensively with a very rare but highly celebrated ailment, particularly in order to showcase their personal natural philosophical commitments. Kathleen Wellman examines the conferences of the Bureau d’Adresse (1663–42), illustrating how the idea of “nature” was conceived in scientific discourse, and how it was applied as an authority toward cultural issues. Terence D. Murphy explores the interplay among the scientific, social, and political spheres in early modern France—particularly in the debates over the Eucharist, the royal touch, and demonology. [End Page 313]

Leaping neatly over the eighteenth century, the volume’s remaining papers deal with the nineteenth century. Robert Richards discusses the theological foundations for Darwin’s theory of evolution, and his gradual abandonment of theistic notions over the course of his life. Karen Parshall writes a sophisticated paper on James J. Sylvester—the first professor of mathematics at Johns Hopkins University—and the positivist philosophy expressed in his (perhaps rather curious) attempts to link aspects of chemistry’s atomic theory with the mathematical theory of invariants. Finally, Paul Theerman recounts the enthusiastic reception of the British popular lecturer Dionysus Lardner during his American tour in the 1840s, showing how American audiences responded to scientific material when it was linked to ideals of morality and progress, and larded with a good measure of theatricality.

This highly variegated volume concludes with a rather substantial autobiographical address by Allen Debus, and a list of his publications. Those interested in learning more about the formation and career of a renowned historian of science will find his story both interesting and entertaining. As for the volume as a whole, there is surely a paper or two here to interest almost any reader in the history of science or of medicine, but only a broad generalist is likely to be equally intrigued by all the miscellaneous topics covered.

Lawrence M. Principe
Johns Hopkins University
...

Share