3 - Science as Exact Calculation and Elevated Meditation: Mechanism of the Heavens (1831), “Preliminary Dissertation” (1832), and On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834)

Summary

For my part, I was long in the state of a boa constrictor after a full meal – and am but just recovering the powers of motion. My mind was so distended by the magnitude, the immensity of what you put into it! I can only assure you that you have given me a great deal of pleasure; that you have enlarged my conception of the sublimity of the universe, beyond any ideas I had ever before been enabled to form.

–Maria Edgeworth, 1832

The “full meal” to which Edgeworth refers is the “Preliminary Dissertation” on the Mechanism of the Heavens. The terms she uses and the responses she describes seem more appropriate for an epic poem than a scientific treatise. The “Preliminary Dissertation” combined the qualities of both. Although it was written for and originally published as part of Mechanism, the “Preliminary Dissertation” was considered sufficiently valuable to be published independently in 1832. It epitomizes Somerville's most important abilities and contributions as a writer and a philosopher and provided the basic structure for one of Somerville's most popular books, On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, which sold over 15,000 copies. As mentioned earlier, Mechanism established Somerville's reputation in elite science. Because Mechanism and Connexion were Mary Somerville's most esoteric and technical writings, they provide the most convincing demonstration of her ability to portray science as both exact calculation and elevated meditation. They also illustrate the intellectual quality that Whewell defined in gendered terms as the peculiar illumination of the female mind, a quality that ultimately reveals itself more through its blurring of gendered traits than its exemplification of female ones.