In 1879 G. H. Lewes described the state of current British mental science. There were, he maintained, three main ‘schools’ of psychology. The first of these Lewes called the ‘ontological’ school; its members traced their lineage to Thomas Reid and to the common sense philosophers of the early nineteenth century, especially Dugald Stewart and William Hamilton. The second school was the ‘empirical’, which stood in the tradition of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Condillac, Hartley, and James Mill. The ontologists and the empiricists differed in their theories of knowledge: the former held that certain beliefs were native to the mind; the latter that all ideas originated, mediately or immediately, from experience. However, both schools agreed on the object of psychological enquiry. They ‘quietly ignore the complex conditions of the living organism, and treat mental facts simply as the manifestations of a Psychical Principle’. Further, the ontological and empiricist schools concurred on the means by which this principle should be studied; both made introspection the ‘exclusive method of research’.

That the export of Scottish engineers and engineering teachers to Japan in the 1870s aided that country's astonishingly rapid process of modernization from a feudal to a capitalist, industrialized society will not occasion surprise or dissent. As the Japan weekly mail editorialized in 1878: In no direction has Japan symbolised her advance towards assimilation of the civilisation of the Western world more emphatically than in that of applied science.

In the history of thermodynamics, two dates stand out as especially important: 1824, when Sadi Carnot's brilliant memoir Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu appeared in print; and 1850, when Rudolf Clausius published his similarly titled paper ‘Ueber die bewegende Kraft der Wärme’. In this paper Clausius narrowly beat the Scottish physicist William Thomson to the solution of a puzzle which had been highlighted in the latter's recent publications: how could Carnot's theory, with all its intellectual attractions, be reconciled with the newly discovered principle of the inter-convertibility of heat and work? Clausius's solution (as is well known) was to replace Carnot's axiom of heat conservation, with the axiom now known as the second law of thermodynamics.

The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh which had flourished for a few years after 1738 was as good as dead in 1748. Lord Morton, its President, now lived most of the time in London whence he wrote to Sir John Clerk in 1747 that he regarded the Society as ‘annihilated’, apparently thinking that the death of Colin MacLaurin in 1746 and the temporary retirement to the countryside of its other Secretary, Andrew Plummer, had put an end to it. Sir John had hoped to revive it through association with the Royal Society of London, but Morton did not encourage him in this scheme, about which he had ‘great doubts’. The Society needed a mathematician and an experimenter who could carry on the consulting work which MacLaurin had done, but Morton glumly wondered if ‘the new professor of Mathematics [Matthew Stewart] will be as zealous as MacLaurin had been.’ The Society's other officers, Dr John Clerk and Alexander Lind, are not known to have tried to revive the Society. Perhaps they were discouraged by the fact that ten (22%) of the members of the Society were dead, and that six more (1396) had left the kingdom. At least three others (7%) were likely to have been habitually absent from meetings because they lived some distance from Edinburgh. Of the remaining forty-five known members in 1748, nine (20%) were over sixty-one years of age with four being between seventy-one and seventy-six. In 1737 the average age of thirty-eight of the founders had been 46.0, but by 1748 it had risen to 53.9 for the thirty-three men for whom it can be calculated. Disruption, death, and age had diminished enthusiasm for the Society and jeopardized its survival. Only two meetings are known to have been held in 1746. Sir John's letter to Morton about affiliation with the Royal Society is the only clear sign of life in 1747. We may well ask why this floundering body survived, to whom and to what it owed its revival? The answers to these questions tell us something about the intellectual needs and interests of the Edinburgh intelligentsia of the mid-eighteenth century.

It is well known that Richard Hakluyt in a publication of 1581 congratulated Sir Walter Ralegh for employing Harriot to teach him and his many sea captains the sciences of navigation. Even more important, however, was the navigational research carried out by Harriot on behalf of Ralegh. He made important theoretical advances in map theory and in navigational astronomy, carried out the astronomical observations needed for a reform in navigational tables, and designed and himself tested at sea improved navigational instruments. Harriot had many other responsibilities in connexion with Ralegh's enterprises. From August 1585 to June 1586 Harriot was in Virginia, and in 1589 he was listed as one of Ralegh's colonists in Munster. He collected intelligence concerning America for Ralegh, and his publication of 1588 was effective as propaganda for Virginia. Harriot was also entrusted with financial, and even political responsibilities by Ralegh. Instructing Ralegh and his captains in navigation was an important part of Harriot's work but it is more likely that he did this as the occasion demanded, rather than on a regular basis.

In 1858, August Kekulé and Archibald Scott Couper independently published similar ideas regarding the tetravalence and self-linking ability of carbon atoms; three years later, the Russian chemist Aleksandr Mikhailovich Butlerov read a paper at the German Naturforscherversammlung in Speyer, which restated, clarified, and enlarged upon the ideas of Kekulé and Couper. In 1958, the centenary of the structure theory was celebrated in Chicago, London, Heidelberg, and Ghent; the celebrations in Moscow, Frunze, and Kazan took place three years later. For over a century chemists and chemical historians have disputed the origins of structure theory. Sometimes this activity has been confined to occasional sniping, but at other times determined battles have been fought. The polemic has never been characterized by cool and dispassionate discourse. Western historians have in general been unwilling or unable to master the extensive Russian literature on the question; the arguments of Soviet historians have often been clothed in Marxist rhetoric or otherwise influenced by political considerations.

A recently published book, James Prescott Joule and the concept of energy, by H. J. Steffens, includes a chapter entitled ‘Conjectures on J. R. Mayer and J. P. Joule’. In it the author raises an intriguing possibility.

Joseph Glanvill is well known for his enthusiastic support of the early Royal Society. Even before Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society of London (1667) appeared in full, Glanvill had set a philosophic background for the new science in his Vanity of dogmatizing (1661), had attacked the outdatedness of contemporary Aristotelians in a revised edition of Vanity called Scepsis scientifica (1665), had praised the Society at length in a flowery address in Scepsis, and had defended the programme of the Society in his private correspondence. If propaganda and enthusiastic support were needed for the growth of science in Restoration England, no one seems to have done more to supply these ingredients during the early years of the Royal Society's existence than the colourful rector of Bath and Frome.

Although the University of Leeds has attained something of a reputation for the quality of its scholarship in the history of science, few historians are aware of the impressive collection of early scientific and medical books and manuscripts to be found in the University libraries. In order to make the library resources more widely known, we embarked on a systematic survey of the contents of the main historical collections. We wanted not only to give a general impression of the particular strengths and distinctive features of each collection, but also to mention the interesting or rare copies of individual works to be found in them. We have, therefore, examined every book related to the history of science and medicine in the relevant collections, and in doing so we have uncovered a number of important items. For example, we have identified a book which was once in Newton's library, and a previously unrecorded copy of Joseph Black's chemical lectures. More generally, we had not suspected the true size and range of the Chaston Chapman Collection, which makes it a valuable resource for the history of alchemy and early chemistry; nor were we initially aware of the strength of the Historical Collection of the Medical and Dental Library. The wealth of the legacies to (and the discrimination shown in recent purchases for) the Brotherton and Special Collections also impressed us.

Paul Weindling's paper, ‘Science and Sedition,’ which covers the period 1795–1819, appears to be a critical response to my own short note on ‘London science and the Seditious Meetings Act of 1817’. As several misconceptions are fairly formally iterated in Mr Weindling's treatment, I would like to take the opportunity of clarifying the issues, adding some further detail, and answering the one or two points of substance which have been raised with respect to my initial note. In an effort to save the valuable space of the Journal and avoid undue repetition, my reply takes the form of distinct but hopefully cumulative points, and remains centred upon the legislation of 1817, although I do permit myself some comments on the years 1817–20 as a coherent period.