The Philosophical Breakfast Club

by Laura J. Snyder

  105 Margaret Herschel to Caroline Herschel, undated (received October 1, 1836), in Evans et al., Herschel at the Cape, pp. 236–37.

  106 Basil Hall to Herschel, March 11, 1836, RS: HS 9.182.

  107 John Herschel to Caroline Herschel, January 10, 1837, in Evans et al., Herschel at the Cape, p. 282.

  108 De Morgan to Herschel, December 30, 1842, RS: HS 6.188.

  109 See Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 1, p. 187, and Clerke, The Herschels and Modern Astronomy, p. 211.

  110 Herschel to Whewell, November 30, 1853, WP Add. ms. a. 207 f. 90.

  111 See Brooke, “Natural Theology and the Plurality of Worlds,” p. 256.

  112 Whewell to Airy, October 28, 1837, in Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 2, p. 263.

  113 Brewster, “Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” p. 292.

  114 Brewster, “Whewell’s Plurality of Worlds,” p. 10.

  115 Whewell to Murchison, May 30, 1854, WP O.15.47 f. 311.

  116 For more on Owen, see Rupke, Richard Owen. Some historians of science now argue that this was not an accurate way to read Owen’s view. (See e.g. Camardi, “Richard Owen, Morphology, and Evolution.”) Whewell, however, did interpret him this way.

  117 Whewell, Of the Plurality of Worlds, p. 240.

  118 Ibid., p. 243.

  119 Ibid., pp. 246–47.

  120 Whewell to Monteagle, November 24, 1853, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 431.

  121 Whewell had the foresight to buy the land opposite the Great Gate of Trinity, on which were built the two new courts that bear the name “Whewell’s Courts.” The rents earned from the rooms are used for the professorship and the scholarships. See Trevelyan, Trinity College, p. 99.

  122 Reported by Stephen, “William Whewell,” p. 1370.

  123 Jones to Herschel, [n.d.], RS: HS 10.409.

  124 See Herschel to Charlotte Jones, January 13, 1855, RS: HS 23.153.

  125 John Herschel to Caroline Herschel, January 24, 1855, TXU: H/L-0525; Reel 1053.

  126 See Reinhart, “The Life of Richard Jones,” p. 15.

  127 Whewell, “Prefatory Notice,” pp. xx–xxi.

  128 Ibid., pp. xxxvi.

  129 Ibid., p. xix.

  130 Carlyle, Reminiscences, vol. 2, p. 221.

  131 Whewell to Jones, October 6, 1843, in Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 2, p. 319.

  132 Sangster, The Art of Home-Making, p. 313.

  133 Whewell to Sedgwick, December 19, 1855, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, pp. 446–47.

  134 Whewell to Susan Myers, December 23, 1855, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 448.

  135 See Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 519.

  136 See Winstanley, Early Victorian Cambridge, p. 140; Whewell to Kate Marshall, January 25, 1856, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 457.

  CHAPTER 12. NATURE DECODED

  1 See Anonymous, “The Wheat Harvest in Relation to Weather.”

  2 Babbage Papers, BL 37,205, f. 104, letter postmarked June 2, 1854, deciphering dated July 16, 1854.

  3 William Childe to Babbage, July 24, 1854, BL 37,205 ff. 127–28.

  4 Millar, Hints on Insanity, p. 82.

  5 In his novel The Newcomes, from 1855, Thackeray was the first known writer to use the phrase “to stalk” in this way. He writes of two characters, “As he was pursuing the deer, she stalked her lordship.”

  6 Dickens, The Household Narrative of Current Events for the Year 1854, p. 158.

  7 See William Childe to Babbage, July 24, 1854, BL Add. ms. 37,205 ff. 127–28; and John S. Gregory to Babbage, July 26, 1854, BL Add. ms. 37,205 ff. 129–30.

  8 Anonymous, editorial, Times, July 22, 1854.

  9 Van Helden, “Conclusion,” pp. 103–104.

  10 See Jardine and Stewart, Hostage to Fortune, ch. 4.

  11 For example, Elizabeth Wells Gallup and, more recently, Thomas P. Leary.

  12 See Kahn, The Codebreakers, pp. 189–91.

  13 Ibid., pp. 198–99.

  14 See Singh, The Code Book, pp. 79–80.

  15 Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, p. 174.

  16 John Herschel to Mary Herschel, August 9, 1799, abstract in Crowe et al., A Calendar of the Correspondence, p. 11.

  17 Attributed to Whewell by C. C. Bombaugh, Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature, p. 96.

  18 Whewell, Astronomy and General Physics, p. 307.

  19 See Herschel, “Photography in Natural Colors,” pp. 5–6.

  20 Herschel to Babbage, February 15, 1851, BL 37,194 f. 478.

  21 See Franksen, Mr. Babbage’s Secret, p. 18; Buxton, Memoirs, p. 346; and Baily, An Account of the Revd. John Flamsteed, First Astronomer Royal, pp. 348–49.

  22 Herschel to Beaufort, July 3, 1836, abstract in Crowe et al., A Calendar of the Correspondence, p. 169.

  23 See Franksen, Mr. Babbage’s Secret, pp. 211–13.

  24 See Babbage, “Sur l’emploi plus ou moins fréquent des mêmes lettres dans les différentes langues,” pp. 135–37.

  25 Franksen, Mr. Babbage’s Secret, pp. 211–13.

  26 See Singh, The Code Book, pp. 9–10.

  27 H. P. Babbage, Memoirs and Correspondence, pp. 81–82.

  28 “Apparatus to Facilitate Communication by Cypher,” patent application no. 1727, 1854, cited in Franksen, Mr. Babbage’s Secret, p. 259.

  29 See Singh, The Code Book, pp. 69–76.

  30 See Franksen, Mr. Babbage’s Secret, pp. 223–24.

  31 Ibid., pp. 253–58.

  32 Anonymous, editorial, Times, May 2, 1855.

  33 Anonymous, editorial, Times, May 12, 1855.

  34 Draft letter, BL Add. ms. 37,205 f. 133; Jones, “Hammond, Edmund,” and Jones, Foreign Office, Diplomatic and Consular Sketches, p. 21.

  35 Reprinted in Gardner, Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing, pp. 49–50.

  36 Darwin already had the origin of adaptation and the origin of new species, but not the origin of divergence—the ordered relation between higher taxa. See Glick and Kohn, eds., Darwin on Evolution, p. 88.

  37 See Darwin, notebook M, September 21, 1838, in Barrett et al., eds., Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, p. 555.

  38 On Darwin’s changing faith, see Darwin, Autobiography, pp. 86–87.

  39 See Chambers, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, p. 106, and Choi, “Natural History’s Hypothetical Moments,” p. 282.

  40 Sedgwick, “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,” p. 2.

  41 Darwin to Lyell, October 8, 1845, in Burkhardt and Smith, eds., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 3, p. 258.

  42 Darwin to Asa Gray, November 29, 1859, in Burkhardt and Smith, eds., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6, p. 492.

  43 Darwin, Autobiography, p. 67.

  44 Ibid., p. 106.

  45 Darwin made this comment to Leslie Stephen, who reported it in his entry “William Whewell” in the Dictionary of National Biography, p. 1372.

  46 Darwin, Notebook D, p. 49, quoted in Barrett and Gruber, Darwin on Man, p. 347.

  47 Darwin, Origin of Species, last sentence.

  48 Darwin to Whewell, April 16, 1839, in Burkhardt and Smith, eds., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 2, p. 186.

  49 Darwin, from a list titled “Books to Be Read,” Darwin Collection, University Library, Cambridge, quoted in Ruse, “Darwin’s Debt to Philosophy,” p. 166.

  50 Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, p. 170, and Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, pp. vii–viii. See also Babbage’s discussion of his work on magnetic rotation in Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, p. 340.

  51 Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. 1, p. xxxix.

  52 See Browne, Darwin’s Origin of Species: A Biography, pp. 53–55.

  53 Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1st ed., pp. 434–35.

  54 Eliot, The George Eliot Letters, vol. 3, p. 227.

  55 Sedgwick, “Objections to Mr. Darwin’s Theory on the Origin of Species.” See also
Owen, “Darwin on the Origin of Species.”

  56 Darwin, Origin of Species, 2nd ed., p. 388.

  57 Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, pp. 1–2.

  58 Ticknor, Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor, vol. 2, p. 384.

  59 Darwin to Herschel, November 11, 1859, in Burkhardt and Smith, eds., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7, pp. 370–71.

  60 See Herschel, Physical Geography, p. 12n.

  61 Whewell, Astronomy and General Physics, p. 144.

  62 At times, in letters to Gray, Darwin suggested that there was a type of guiding force in his theory. See Lennox, “The Darwin/Gray Correspondence,” and Snyder, Reforming Philosophy, p. 198n.

  63 Whewell to Darwin, January 2, 1860, in Burkhardt and Smith, eds., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8, p. 6.

  64 Darwin to Lyell, January 4, 1860, in Burkhardt and Smith, eds., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8, p. 15.

  65 Whewell, Astronomy and General Physics, 7th ed., 1864, pp. xvi, xx.

  66 Darwin to Asa Gray, [February 8 or 9] 1860, in Burkhardt and Smith, eds., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 8, p. 75.

  67 Whewell, “Presidential Address,” p. 642.

  68 Anonymous, “Darwin’s Descent of Man,” p. 368.

  69 There is still controversy over what, exactly, was said at this meeting. See Desmond and Moore, Darwin, pp. 492ff.

  70 Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, p. 133.

  71 Whewell, “Lyell’s Principles of Geology, Volume 2,” p. 117.

  72 Whewell to Forbes, January 4, 1864, in Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 2, pp. 435–36.

  73 Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. 3, p. 488.

  74 Augustus De Morgan to Herschel, September 20, 1864, in De Morgan, Memoir of Augustus De Morgan, p. 326. On the “declaration,” see Brock and Macleod, “The Scientists’ Declaration.”

  75 Quoted in Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, p. 186.

  76 On the eclipse, see Hufbauer, Exploring the Sun, pp. 51–52.

  77 Whewell to Susan Myers, April 13, 1856, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 469.

  78 Whewell to Forbes, July 24, 1860, in Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 2, pp. 420–21.

  79 Koukkos, “Eclipse Chasing, in Pursuit of Total Awe,” p. 6.

  80 Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk, p. 16.

  81 Whewell to Talbot, October 3, 1860, Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot, document no. 8206.

  82 See Hufbauer, Exploring the Sun, p. 49 and 49n. 7.

  83 Ibid., p. 52.

  84 See Buxton, Memoirs, p. 344.

  CHAPTER 13. ENDINGS

  1 William Whewell to Ann Whewell, December 13, 1857, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 500.

  2 Whewell to Herschel, January 27, 1861, RS: HS 18.216.

  3 Whewell to Mrs. Stair Douglas, February 6, 1861, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 522.

  4 Whewell to Herschel, early January 1861, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, pp. 520–21.

  5 The Office for National Statistics, UK, at www.statistics.gov.uk, accessed October 30, 2009.

  6 Clark, “William Whewell, In Memoriam,” p. 549.

  7 Whewell to De Morgan, February 14, 1859, in Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 2, p. 418.

  8 Whewell to Forbes, January 28, 1863, in Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 2, p. 429.

  9 Lee, King Edward VII: A Biography, p. 98.

  10 “Whewell’s books,” see Bristed, Five Years in an English University, p. 37. Thomson to Whewell, March 20, 1857, WP Add. ms. 213 f. 126.

  11 See Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 1, pp. 277–82.

  12 Quoted in Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 1, p. 342.

  13 J. S. Mill to Whewell, May 24, 1865, WP Add. ms. a. 209 f. 48 (1). I discuss their rancorous debate over moral philosophy, politics, economics, and science in my Reforming Philosophy.

  14 Whewell to Forbes, January 4, 1864, in Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 2, p. 435.

  15 Todhunter, Notes on Whewell, Todhunter Papers, St. John’s College, A1, vol. 2, p. 119.

  16 See Clark, “William Whewell, In Memoriam,” p. 548.

  17 Lady Affleck was fifty-eight when she died on April 1, 1865. Her exact birth date remains obscure. See Anonymous, “Lady Affleck,” p. 666.

  18 Whewell to Forbes, January 4, 1864, in Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 2, p. 436.

  19 See Clarke, Eleven Weeks in Europe, p.152; Peabody, Reminiscenses of European Travel, p. 107.

  20 Whewell to Mrs. Summer Gibson, March 5, 1865, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 534.

  21 Whewell to Forbes, March 30, 1865, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 536.

  22 Whewell to Kate Gibson, March 30, 1865, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 536.

  23 Whewell to Susan Myers, April 7, 1865, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 537.

  24 Anonymous, “Lady Affleck,” p. 666.

  25 Whewell to Lady Malcolm, [n.d.], in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 542.

  26 Whewell to Mrs. Stair Douglas, January 29, 1866, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 551.

  27 Whewell to Kate Marshall, February 10, 1856, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 461.

  28 See Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, pp. 190–91.

  29 Clark, “William Whewell, In Memoriam,” p. 552.

  30 On Whewell’s love of Jane Austen, see William Whewell to Ann Whewell, April 8, 1840, in Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, p. 197. On Whewell’s accident and death, see Stair Douglas (who was present), Life and Selections, pp. 552–55.

  31 Clark, “William Whewell, In Memoriam,” p. 550.

  32 See Stair Douglas, Life and Selections, pp. 552–55.

  33 See William Selwyn to Herschel, February 25–March 6, RS: HS 15.473–83.

  34 Herschel to Babbage, September 1866, RS: HS 2.336.

  35 See Crowe et al., eds., A Calendar of the Correspondence, p. 625.

  36 See Herschel, Experimental Notebooks, Science Museum, MS 478.

  37 Herschel, “The Reverend William Whewell, D.D.,” pp. li–lxi.

  38 Mitchell, “Reminiscences of the Herschels.”

  39 See, for instance, letter of Herschel to Julia Margaret Cameron, June 28, 1841, abstract in Crowe et al., eds., A Calendar of the Correspondence, p. 246.

  40 Reproduced in Goldberg, ed., Photography in Print, p. 186.

  41 See Julia Margaret Cameron to Herschel, January 28, 1866, RS: HS 5.162; and Herschel to Cameron, February 5, 1866, RS: HS 5.163.

  42 See Flanders, Consuming Passions, pp. 483–86.

  43 See Julia Margaret Cameron to Herschel, March 20, [1864], RS: HS 5.158.

  44 Herschel to James Samuelson, May 1868, draft, RS: HS 25.15.25.

  45 John Herschel to Margaret Herschel, April 29, 1867 abstract in Crowe et al., eds., A Calendar of the Correspondence, p. 638.

  46 Herschel, Familiar Lectures, pp. 64–65.

  47 See Herschel to Whewell, February 10, 1864 to September 27, 1865, WP Add. ms. 207 ff. 110–17; and November 3, 1865, WP Add. ms. a. 207 f. 119.

  48 Herschel to Whewell, December 11, 1865, WP Add. ms. a.207 f. 121.

  49 Herschel, The Iliad of Homer, Translated into English Accentuated Hexameters, p. xvi.

  50 See Longfellow to Herschel, August 2, 1867, abstract in Crowe et al., eds., A Calendar of the Correspondence, p. 641.

  51 See Todhunter, William Whewell, vol. 1, pp. 290–91.

  52 Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, a Memoir, p. 32.

  53 See Henchman, “The Globe We Groan In.”

  54 Quoted in ibid., p. 29.

  55 Julia Margaret Cameron to Herschel, May 25, 1862, RS: HS 5.157.

  56 Herschel to Elizabeth Colling, May 1869, RS: HS 24.257.

  57 Herschel to Elizabeth Colling, February 16, 1866, RS: HS 24.142.

  58 John Herschel to Margaret Herschel, August 15, 1866, abstract in Crowe et al., eds., A Calendar of the Correspondence,
p. 630.

  59 See Bartholow, A Practical Treatise on Materia Medica and Therapeutics, p. 353.

  60 See Hubert Airy to Herschel, November 18, 1868, RS: HS 19.310.

  61 Herschel to Quetelet, October 9, 1870, abstract in Crowe et al., eds., A Calendar of the Correspondence, p. 679.

  62 See Herschel, letter, London Review 5 (September 20, 1862): 264.

  63 See Herschel, Experiment number 1819, in Experimental Notebooks, Science Museum, MS 478.

  64 Herschel to Babbage, December 9, 1870, BL 37,199 f. 524.

  65 Herschel to Sophia De Morgan, quoted in Buttmann, The Shadow of the Telescope, p. 189.

  66 See Margaret Herschel to Duncan Stewart, May 11, 1871, abstract in Crowe et al., eds., A Calendar of the Correspondence, pp. 685–86.

  67 Babbage to Margaret Herschel, draft, May 1871, in BL 37,199 f. 537.

  68 See www.westminster-abbey.org.

  69 Dodge, “Memoir of Sir John Frederick William Herschel.”

  70 Buxton, Memoirs, pp. 291–93, and Collier, The Little Engines That Could’ve, pp. 235–37.

  71 Quoted in Buxton, Memoirs, p. 294.

  72 See Collier, The Little Engines That Could’ve, p. 233–34.

  73 Quoted in ibid., p. 238.

  74 See Brunel to Babbage, July 28, 1857, BL 37,198, ff. 230–31.

  75 Countess Teleki to Babbage, October 3, 1862, BL 37,199, ff. 406–407.

  76 Babbage to Countess Teleki, BL 37,199, f. 405 (misplaced before letter to which it is a reply).

  77 Babbage to George Stokes, August 1869, BL 31,799, f. 477; Babbage to Stokes, October 1869, BL 31,799, f. 478.

  78 See Countess Teleki to Babbage, September 4, 1863, and November 26, 1863 (BL 37,199, f. 548 and 37,200, ff. 9–10).

  79 Lionel Tollemache, quoted in Collier, The Little Engines That Could’ve, p. 244.

  80 Edward Ryan to Herschel, August 25, 1868, RS: HS 14.466.

  81 Crosse, Red Letter Days of My Life (London: Bentley, 1892), vol. 2, p. 279, quoted in Stein, Ada, p. 116.

  82 See Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, pp. 262–64.

  83 See draft of letter to Times, not sent, December 6, 1865, BL 37,199 f. 276.

  84 On this topic see Picker, “The Soundproof Study.”

  85 Bass, Street Music in the Metropolis, p. 60.

  86 De Morgan to Herschel, August 18, 1864, in De Morgan, Memoir of Augustus De Morgan, p. 324.