This article presents evidence that an anonymous publication of 1573, a Letter sent by a gentleman of England [concerning …] the myraculous starre nowe shyning, was written by Thomas Digges, England's first Copernican. It tells the story of how it arose out of research commissioned by Elizabeth I's privy counsellors in response to the conventional argument of Jean Gosselin, librarian to Henri III of France, that the star was a comet which presaged wars. The text is significant because it seems to contain the observations and opinions that Digges held before he completed his other astronomical treatise, the groundbreaking Alae seu scalae mathematicae. It also casts some light on the development of Digges's radical and puritan views about the star, Copernican astronomy, the infinity of the universe and a belief that the ‘latter days’ of the world had arrived.

The Scopes trial (1925) fuelled discussion in the United States on the social and political implications of Darwinism. For the defenders of the 1925 Tennessee law – which prohibited the teaching of Darwinism in schools – Darwinism was, amongst other things, responsible for the German militarism which eventually led to the First World War. This view was supported by İsmail Fennî, a late Ottoman intellectual, who authored a book immediately after the trial which aimed to debunk scientific materialism. In it, he claimed that Darwinism blurred the distinction between man and beast and thus destroyed the foundations of morality. However, despite his anti-Darwinist stance, İsmail Fennî argued against laws forbidding the teaching of Darwinism in schools, and emphasized that even false theories contributed to scientific improvement. Indeed, because of his belief in science he claimed that Muslims should not reject Darwinism if it were supported by future scientific evidence. If this turned out to be the case, then religious interpretations should be revised accordingly. This article contributes to the literature on early Muslim reactions to Darwinism by examining the views of İsmail Fennî, which were notably sophisticated when compared with those of the anti-religious Darwinist and anti-Darwinist religious camps that dominated late Ottoman intellectual life.

In the autumn of 1851, on the occasion of the American Institute of New York's annual fair, the Boston chemist and geologist Charles Jackson chose as the subject of his address the ‘Encouragement and Cultivation of the Sciences in the United States’. Playing on popular enthusiasm for science and technology, Jackson rehearsed the wondrous progress of the arts and the role of science in that progress. Science was the ‘Hand-maiden of the Arts’, and most assuredly the ‘maid of honor’, he declared, for science was the ‘progressive power’ which inspired new inventions. These were commonplace assumptions of the time, and surely no one in his audience would have disputed them.

A hundred years ago the science of spectroscopy, though not yet christened, may be said to have attained its majority and to be just entering on its period of full adult development. It was born, of course, with Newton's explanation of the formation of the spectrum, and for many years thereafter little of importance was added to what he had discovered. It was not, in fact, until the nineteenth century that anything of outstanding importance occurred, and then, in 1802, Wollaston substituted a slit for the round hole through which Newton's sunlight passed into his prism, and thereby not only saw for the first time the dark lines in the solar spectrum but also took the first step towards the perfection of the spectroscope on which all later progress depended. The next step was taken by Fraunhofer who, in 1814, examined the spectrum through a telescope instead of letting it fall on a screen. The last essential improvement—the introduction of the collimator to make the light from the slit parallel before it entered the prism—was introduced in 1839 independently by Simms and Swan, so that before our period begins, the complete spectroscope existed, though it was not to be converted into a spectrograph, for photographing spectra, until much later.

Most modern analysts of Newton's laws of motion, whether they have approached the subject from a historical or from a philosophical viewpoint, have tended to concentrate on the status of the first two laws; the third law has largely been overlooked, or else it has been dismissed as somehow less interesting. My purpose in this paper is to reverse this approach—I intend to investigate some of the historical aspects of the third law, particularly the empirical background to Newton's statement of it, and in so doing, I intend to skirt most of the questions which have been raised concerning the status of the other two laws. In concentrating on the historical aspects of the third law, I shall also by-pass Mach's controversial re-interpretation of its role in mechanics, for while Mach saw the law as the basis for an operational definition of “mass”, it is quite clear that Newton did not so regard it. On the contrary, Newton seems to have regarded all three of his laws as straightforward statements of fact about the world, so that a knowledge of the factual background to the laws is a fundamental pre-requisite to an understanding of Newton's thought.

Viewed in the light of the discussions of scientific lecturing in eighteenth-century London contained in this issue, the case of medicine may be said to be both more of the same but also something different.

Leonardo's fascination with Archimedes as well as with his mathematics is well known. There are three fairly extensive and eccentric comments in the surviving notebooks: on his military inventions; on his part in an Anglo-Spanish conflict and on his activities, death and burial at the siege of Syracuse. Reti has examined the first of the three, that about the Architronito or steam cannon, mainly considering the origin of the idea for the cannon and its attribution to Archimedes, but with comments on the later influence of Leonardo's ideas. Marshall Clagett has produced the most comprehensive attempt to try to identify Leonardo's sources for the third.

R. A. Fisher is perhaps best known for his influential theoretical contributions to the ‘Evolutionary Synthesis’ of the 1930s and 1940s in which biometry was reconciled with Mendelism. It is no accident, I believe, that when historians discuss the ‘Synthesis’, the names R. A. Fisher, Sewall Wright and J. B. S. Haldane are nearly always given in that order. Fisher's 1918 paper ‘The correlation between relatives on the supposition of Mendelian inheritance’ suggested that biometry, which emphasized the distribution of characters based on continuous variation, and Mendelism, which emphasized discontinuous characters, were compatible and could be united to study evolutionary change. If one considered large numbers of discontinuous, Mendelian characters, then statistical biometrical analysis could be conducted. Thus, Fisher argued, biometry and Mendelism need not oppose each other.

From the late nineteenth century onwards there emerged an increasingly diverse response to escalating patenting activity. Inventors were generally supportive of legislation that made patenting more accessible, while others, especially manufacturers, saw patenting culture as an impediment. The medical profession claimed that patenting represented ‘a barrier to medical treatment’ and was thus detrimental to the nation's health, yet, as I argue, the profession's development of strict codes of conduct forbidding practitioners from patenting resulted in rebellion from some members, who increasingly sought protection for their inventions. Such polarized opinions within the medical trade continue to affect current medical practice today.

According to articles and books published at the end of the nineteenth century, the introduction of photography to astronomy was one of the most notable events in the discipline in a period chock full of important inventions and amazing discoveries. Edward Holden, director of the Lick Observatory in California, between 1887 and 1898, was rapturous about the promise of photography: it would simplify astronomical observation, increase the reliability of data and produce permanent records of the heavens untainted by distraction, ill discipline or bias. This would happen, he argued, because of the mechanical virtues of the camera:

It does not tire, as the eye does, and refuse to pay attention for more than a small fraction of a section, but it will faithfully record every ray of light that falls upon it even for hours and finally it will produce its automatic register [ctdot ] [that] can be measured, if necessary, again and again. The permanence of the records is of the greatest importance, and so far as we know it is complete [ctdot ] We can hand down to our successors a picture of the sky, locked in a box.

The “Scientific Revolution” of the seventeenth century cannot adequately be assessed without an appreciation of the achievements and limitations of those, whether giants or dwarfs, on whose shoulders Galileo and his contemporaries stood. And since for many historians Galileo's main contribution lies in the mathematization of the natural world and especially of time and motion, particular interest attaches to medieval treatises dealing with these questions, above all to those which were in widespread demand early in the sixteenth century.

The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh Throughout the years 1768–1783 looked to the outside world like a flourishing and important body. By 1771 it had sponsored the publication of five volumes of papers which had gone through several printings and translations. It had a distinguished foreign membership which assured its recognition abroad as one of the important academic bodies in the cosmopolitan Republic of Letters. From its foundation in 1737 until his death in 1768, its President had been the Earl of Morton, better known as the President of the Royal Society of London and as an astronomer who had been active in the practical work of the London society. Another member, Sir John Pringle, became President of the Royal Society in 1772. It was also known abroad that among the Edinburgh philosophers were to be found the most important professors of the town's university, not only those of its distinguished medical faculty but also men like William Robertson, Adam Ferguson and later John Robison. David Hume had been at one time a Secretary of the Society and probably remained a member to the end of his life in 1776. In the British colonies, the Society could point to members in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Jamaica and other West Indian islands and it had contacts in a far-flung network reaching from China and Siberia in the east to places less remote in Europe and America. Within Britain, the Society had members in London and in provincial towns of whom William Brownrigg was the most important. From these men and from others scattered in Scotland, the Society drew information and projected its image as a successful learned society. These appearances, however, are far clearer than the Society's record of accomplishment during its last years. It is not accidental that so little pertaining to its work survives. The Society in reality had a career far from brilliant and by 1778 hardly deserved the reputation it had acquired. During its last five years it revived but even then it probably did not reach the level of activity seen in the early and mid 1750s.

It has long been noted that towards the end of the sixteenth century the Catholic Church began to use its instruments of censorship – the Inquisition and the Index of Forbidden Books – to prosecute magic with increased vigour. These developments are often deemed to have had important consequences for the development of modern science in Italy, for they delimited areas of legitimate investigation of the natural world. Previous accounts of the censorship of magic have tended to suggest that the Church as an institution was opposed to, and sought to eradicate, the practice of magic. I do not seek to contest the fact that ecclesiastical censors prosecuted various magical and divinatory practices with greater enthusiasm at this time, but I suggest that in order to understand this development more fully it is necessary to offer a more complex picture of the Church. In this article I use the case of the Neapolitan magus Giambattista Della Porta to argue that during the course of the century the acceptable boundaries of magical speculation became increasingly clearly defined. Consequently, many practices and techniques that had previously been of contested orthodoxy were categorically defined as heterodox and therefore liable to prosecution and censorship. I argue, however, that this development was not driven by the Church asserting a ‘traditional’ hostility towards magic, but was instead the result of one particular faction within the Church embedding their conception of orthodox philosophical investigation of the natural world within the machinery of censorship.

This article documents the history of the Allais paradox, and shows that underneath the many discussions of the various protagonists lay different, irreconcilable epistemological positions. Savage, like his mentor von Neumann and similar to economist Friedman, worked from an epistemology of generalized characterizations. Allais, on the other hand, like economists Samuelson and Baumol, started from an epistemology of exact descriptions in which every axiom was an empirical claim that could be refuted directly by observations. As a result, the two sides failed to find a common ground. Only a few decades later was the now so-called Allais paradox rediscovered as an important precursor when a new behavioural economic subdiscipline started to adopt the epistemology of exact descriptions and its accompanying falsifications of rational choice theory.

The exploitation of the lead resources of this country by the Romans commenced very soon after their arrival and shows every sign of being a well organized trade. Little evidence of deep mining has survived and it is probable that most of the ore was obtained by means of shallow workings, mainly in Somerset, Salop, Flintshire and Derbyshire. Although the silver content does not seem ever to have been as high as that of some well-known mines in the Mediterranean, it is clear that silver has been extracted by the Romans from some of the British lead. The lead was cast in carefully made moulds, producing pigs with inscriptions which indicate their date. These were then used for the pipes, cisterns and pewter tableware which contributed to the high standard of living of the period.

One of the difficulties with which scientific endeavour is fraught is that of maintaining detachment. The scientist's interest in his work will lead him to formulate hypotheses and the hypotheses will lead him to expectations about future observations. Is disinterested investigation then possible? Surely the very formulation of a hypothesis engenders a paternal affection and a desire to preserve it. Knowing this, however, the scientist is able to guard against his expectations influencing his observations, defending thus both his objectivity and his honour. But in cases where discriminations are exceptionally difficult to make, then here perhaps, in spite of fore-knowledge of the danger, and in spite of all precautions, an expectation may influence a judgement.

During his long life Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was mainly connected with three European countries: Germany, France and Russia; nevertheless, he had many scientific and personal relations with England, with British scientists, and with other distinguished citizens of Great Britain. Thus Humboldt's life provides an interesting example of international scientific relations in the nineteenth century. The present paper offers a brief account of this universal and versatile scientist's relations with England in particular.

For the artist, mathematics does not consist of the various branches of mathematics. It is not necessarily a matter of calculation but rather of the presence of a sovereign power; a law of infinite resonance, consonance, organisation. Rigour is nothing other than that which truly results in a work of art, whether it be a Leonardo drawing, or the fearsome exactness of the Parthenon (comparable in the cutting of its marble even with that of machine-tools), or the implacable and impeccable play of construction in the cathedral, or the unity in a Cézanne, or the law which determines a tree, the unitary splendour of roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit. Chance has no place in nature. Once one has understood what mathematics is – in the philosophical sense – thereafter one can discern it in all its works. Rigour, and exactness, are the means behind achieving solutions, the cause behind character, the rationale behind harmony.

Le Corbusier, 1948

Probably everyone reading this article has heard of Le Corbusier, no doubt the most famous architect this century, but the images he will arouse in their minds may vary greatly. Some will blame him for those theories promoting standardized high rise construction, which have dominated town planning policy in post-war Europe. Others will admire his highly individual, sculptural buildings such as the church at Ronchamp (1950–55) (see Figure 1), the revolutionary public housing scheme of the Unité d'Habitation at Marseilles (1946–52) (Figure 2), its ground-level pillars (pilotis) and roof-level service stacks alike transformed into enigmatic statues, or his pre-war Purist villas in the Paris suburbs (1920s). His work displayed a wide variety of forms and spaces at any one time, and his career spanned almost sixty years, during which he was constantly questioning, and reformulating theories, and in consequence changing his formal language.

Recently, while reading papers left by the chemist Raphael Meldola (1849–1915), I came across seventy-two letters that relate to a 1904 campaign, led by Meldola, to have a memorial tablet for Herbert Spencer placed in Westminster Abbey. A list of those who eventually signed Meldola's petition to the Dean of Westminster can be found in David Duncan's Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer. The Meldola Papers include letters from some, but not all, of the signatories, from people who refused to sign, and from one or two who agreed to sign, but whose names do not appear on the published list. The surviving correspondence is probably incomplete, as can be inferred from references in the existing letters and from the fact that the Meldola Papers appear to have been somewhat haphazardly collected. Together, the letters show how Spencer's work was viewed by some of Britain's leading intellectuals, shortly after his death in 1903. They reveal that the details of Spencer's work were largely forgotten and that Meldola's correspondents were divided on whether Spencer had been simply a controversialist or had done something worthwhile. Even those (the majority) who believed the latter were unable to articulate exactly what was worthwhile in Spencer's work.

This paper records some of the content of the letters as well as some details of the memorial campaign and of the people involved. My main purpose is to bring these interesting letters to light. James Moore has written of the successful effort to have Charles Darwin buried in Westminster Abbey and of the subsequent campaign for an Abbey memorial plaque, and for a statue to be placed in the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. The unsuccessful campaign on behalf of Spencer, twenty-two years later, provides an interesting comparison. It is not my purpose fully to explore the cultural implications. However, the letters suggest that this and one or two other avenues of inquiry might be worth pursuing.