“In the Warehouse”: Privacy, property and priority in the early royal society

History of Science

Volumn 30, Issue 1, 1992, Pages 29-68

  Iliffe, Rob ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 84965802234     PISSN: 00732753     EISSN: 17538564     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/007327539203000102     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Brouncker to Oldenburg, c. 23 June 1673 (The correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. by Hall A. Rupert Hall Marie Boas (13 vols, Madison and London, 1965-86; hereafter cited as Oldenburg), x, 39); Flamsteed to Towneley, 27 May 1676 (quoted in Howse D. Finch V., “John Flamsteed and the balance spring”, Antiquarian horology, ix (1974-76), 664-74, pp. 671-2).
2. Merton R. K., Science, technology and society in seventeenth century England, (New York, 1970), 169; idem, “Priorities in scientific discovery”, in Merton, The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations, ed. by Storer N. W. (Chicago, 1973), 286-324, and “The Matthew Effect in science (2): Cumulative advantage and the symbolism of intellectual property”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 606-23, esp. p. 622. See also Gaston J., Originality and competition in science (Chicago, 1973).
3. See for example Brannigan A., The social basis of scientific discoveries (Cambridge, 1981), and Shapin S. Schaffer S., Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985); Schaffer S., “Scientific discoveries and the end of natural philosophy”, Social studies of science, xvi (1986), 387-420.
4. see Broad W. Wade N., Betrayers of the truth: Fraud and deceit in the halls of science (New York, 1982). Merton's source for his notion of ‘deviant response’ and its ‘active’ and ‘passive’ varieties is Talcott Parsons, The social system (Illinois, 1951).
5. Intellectual property is now a massive industry, spanning scientific, technological and legal expertise. Amongst numerous works on the subject, see in particular Cornish W. R., Intellectual property: Patents, copyright, trade marks & allied rights (London, 1981); Nelkin D., Science as intellectual property: Who controls research? (New York, 1984); Rip A., “Mobilizing resources through texts”, in Callon M. Law J. Rip A. (eds), Mapping the dynamics of science and technology (London, 1986), 84-99; and Campbell B., “Generalists, practitioners, and intellectuals: The credibility of experts in English patent law”, in Smith R. Wynne B. (eds), Expert evidence: Interpreting science in the law (London, 1989), 210-36.
6. For this analysis I have drawn from the work of Bruno Latour, Steven Shapin, and Erving Goffman; see in particular Latour, “Give me a laboratory and I will raise the world”, in K. Knorr-Cetina and M. Mulkay (eds), Science observed: Perspectives on the social study of science (London, 1983), 141-70; Shapin, “Who was Robert Hooke?”, in Hunter M. Schaffer S. (eds), Robert Hooke: New studies (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), 253-86, esp. pp. 256-69; idem, “The House of Experiment in seventeenth century England”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 373-404; and Goffman, The presentation of self in everyday life (London, 1971).
7. The classic example of this is the Leibniz-Newton priority dispute of the 1710s, the ramifications of which ranged over areas of religion, metaphysics and natural philosophy — See the comments by Steven Shapin in “Licking Leibniz”, History of science, xix (1981), 293-305, esp. pp. 301-2. See also Gingerich O. Westman R., “The Wittich connection: Conflict and priority in late sixteenth century cosmology”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, lxxviii (1988), 1-58, and Gooding D., ” ‘He who proves discovers’; John Herschel, William Pepys and the Faraday effect”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xvii (1985), 205-30.
8. Merton, “Priorities in scientific discovery” (ref. 2), 322. This question reaches to the heart of Merton's influential discussions of ‘multiple discoveries’ in science; cf. his paper “Singletons and multiples in science”, in Merton, The sociology of science (ref. 2), 343-70. We may also make the significant point here that Leibniz and Newton differed radically in their conceptions of what the calculus was, just as Wallace and Darwin's accounts of natural selection were often at extreme variance with one another. Yet both sets of workers are held to have credit for having come across the same ideas. Both attributions of identity were in fact achievements of the relevant communities and not at all self-evident. See Shapin, “Licking Leibniz” (ref. 8), and Kottler M. J., “Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace: Two decades of debate over natural selection”, in KohnD.,(ed.), The Darwinian heritage (Princeton, 1985), 367-434).
9. For the socially constructed nature of similarity relations, see Collins, Changing order (ref. 3).
10. The problem of the proper place for the judgement of this problem is closely connected to the question of the social status of the participant and the site of knowledge production. The work by Westman, Hannaway, Biagioli and Westfall explicitly raises questions of the relations between patronage, place and social status. Galileo was not unusual in seeking patronage outside the University; only by displacing himself elsewhere could he transform the university curriculum and the place of the mathematics-based disciplines in it. See Hannaway O., “Laboratory design and the aim of science: Andreas Libavius versus Tycho Brache”, Isis, lxxvii (1986), 585-610; Biagioli M., “Galileos system of patronage”, History of science, xxviii (1990), 1-62; idem, “The social status of Italian mathematicians, 1450-1600”, History of science, xxvii (1989), 41-95; Westfall R., “Science and patronage: Galileo and the telescope”, Isis, lxxvi (1985), 11-30; Westman R., “The astronomer's role in the sixteenth century: A preliminary study”, History of science, xviii (1980), 105-47; and Ophir A. Shapin S., “The place of knowledge: A methodological survey”, Science in context, iv (1991), 3-21. For the role of mathematics in Italian universities during this period, see Schmitt Charles, “Science in Italian universities”, in idem, Aristotelian tradition and Renaissance universities (London, 1984), 35-56, esp. pp. 45-49. For accessibility between social spaces, see in particular Shapin, “The House of Experiment in seventeenth century England” (ref. 7), passim.
11. See Bacon, New Organon, passim; Webster C., The Great Instauration (London, 1975), Pts III and V; Houghton W. E., “The history of trades: Its relationship to seventeenth century thought”, Journal of the history of ideas, ii (1941), 49-60; Turnbull G. H., “Samuel Hartlib's influence on the early Royal Society”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, x (1953), 101-30; MacLeod C., “Accident or design? George Ravenscroft's patent and the invention of lead crystal glass”, Technology and culture, xxviii (1987), 776-803; and Ochs Kathleen, “The Royal Society's History of Trades Programme: An early episode in applied science”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxxix (1985), 129-58, esp. pp. 146-50.
12. Sprat T., History of the Royal Society (London, 1667), 67 and 155. In 1664, some members of the Royal Society had even supposed that it should be able to examine all new mechanical inventions to see if they were “new, true and useful” (Birch T., The history of the Royal Society (4 vols, London, 1756-57), i, 391).
13. Sprat, History (ref. 13), 317 and 85. See also Christine MacLeod's excellent Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The history of the British patent system. 1660-1800 (Cambridge, 1988), chs 10-11, esp. pp. 186-8 and 204-206.
14. cf. Latour B. Woolgar S., Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts (Princeton, 1986), 186, n. 21). For an excellent discussion of Watt's attempts to draw up a definition of ‘principle’ in a patent specification in such a way that he could not be accused of patenting a natural object, see Robinson Eric, “James Watt and the law of patents”, Technology and culture, xii (1972), 115-39, esp. pp. 122-5.
15. Cf. the discussions by Foucault, “What is an author?”, in RabinowP.,(ed.), The Foucault reader (London, 1986), 101-20; Minnis A. J., Mediaeval theory of authorship: Scholastic literary attitudes in the later Middle Ages (London, 1984); Eisenstein E. L., The printing press as an agent of change: Communication and cultural transformations in early-modern Europe (Cambridge, 1982), esp. pp. 119-22, 229-30, 233-5, 271-302, 337 and 553-66; Prager F. D., “A history of intellectual property from 1547 to 1787”, Journal of the Patent Society, xxvi (1944), 714-19; and Feather J., “The publishers and the pirates: British copyright law in theory and practice, 1710-1775”, Publishing history, xxii (1987), 5-32.
16. Cf. Westman, “The astronomer's role” (ref. 11), 108-9, 117-21; Biagioli, “The social status of Italian mathematicians” (ref. 11), passim; and Dear P., “Jesuit mathematical science and the reconstitution of experience in the early seventeenth century”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, xviii (1987), 133-75.
17. Cf. in particular Shapin Steven, “Robert Boyle and mathematics”, Science in context, ii (1988), 23-58 for Boyle's distrust of the epistemological grounds of mathematics. Boyle was deeply suspicious of the epistemological claims of mathematics because mathematical proofs claimed inappropriately high levels of certainty and compelled assent on grounds other than comprehensibility.
18. see Hoppen K. T., “The nature of the early Royal Society”, The British journal of the history of science, ix (1976), 1-24 and 243-273.
19. Oldenburg to Boyle, 24 Nov. and 3 Dec. 1664 (Oldenburg (ref. 1, 2, 319 and 329). In July 1663, Hooke warned Boyle that Power was “about to publish several expts about colours, which I am confident might be originally yours” (letter of 3 July, in The works of the honourable Robert Boyle, ed. by Birch T., 2nd edn (6 vols, London, 1772), vi, 487).
20. See Hall A. R., “Robert Hooke and horology”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, viii (1951), 167-77, esp. pp. 168-72.
21. Oldenburg to Boyle, 17 Mar. 1665/6 (Oldenburg (ref. 1), iii, 61 (“M.H” was Robert Hooke)). Compare with the dispute between Hooke and Newton over a “new kind of refraction” (see The correspondence of Isaac Newton (hereafter Newton), ed. by Turnbull H. W. Tilling L. Hall A. R. (7 vols, Cambridge 1959-77), i, 383-4).
22. Robinson E., “Eighteenth century commerce and fashion: Matthew Boultons marketing techniques”, Economic history review, 2nd ser., xvi (1936), 39-60; idem, “Matthew Boulton and the art of parliamentary lobbying”, Historical journal, vii, (1964), 209-29; and Dutton H. I., The patent system and inventive activity during the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1852 (Manchester, 1984).
23. Boyle to Oldenburg, 21 Feb. 1667/8 (Oldenburg (ref. 1), iv, 193).
24. Wallis to Oldenburg, 11 Feb. 1668/9 (Oldenburg (ref. 1), v, 390). For Wallis's expertise in cypher decoding, see Scriba C. J., “The autobiography of John Wallis, F.R.S.”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxv (1970), 17-46, esp. pp. 37-38, and Smith D. E., “John Wallis as cryptographer”, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, xxiv (1917), 82-96.
25. Most famously, in the case of the Newton-Leibniz dispute, such appeals required access — Heavily policed by Newton — To manuscripts almost fifty years old.
26. For example, see Lister to Oldenburg, 1 Jan. 1672/3 (Oldenburg (ref. 1), ix, 377-378).
27. Hooke referred to the Society's Register in a Cutlerian Lecture of c.1666; “Every communicating person … shall be free to search the Register to see whether there be any history observation or conjecture the same with his already entered … [to prevent] any fowle dealing in the management of this business …”; see Hunter M., “Science, technology and patronage: Robert Hooke and the Cutlerian lectureship”, in idem, Establishing the new science: The experience of the Early Royal Society (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), 279-338, p. 338.
28. See also Hooke's Diary, ed. by Robinson H. W. Adams W. (London, 1935), 2, 4 Feb. and esp. 8 Feb., where Hooke met Leibniz and “Haux” at Hooke's house “all afternoon” (Diary, 27).
29. Huygens C., Horologium oscillatorium sive de motu pendulorum ad horologia aplato demonstrationes geometricae (Paris, 1673). For a basic account of these disputes, see Hofmann J., Leibniz in Paris, 1672-76 (Cambridge, 1974), chs 8 and 9.
30. Huygens, Oeuvres complètes (22 vols, The Hague, 1888-1950; hereafter cited as Huygens), xiv, 234-53. Huygens apparently refuted Hobbes's proof as soon as it appeared, as well as an attempt by Hobbes to correct it (Huygens to Wallis, 5 March 1655/6 (N.S.); Huygens, i, 392, and 439-40). Unless otherwise stated, I use Old Style dates.
31. Shapin Steven, “Closure and credibility in seventeenth-century science”, paper presented to Joint Meeting of the History of Science Society/British Society for the History of Science, typescript of proceedings (Manchester, 1988), 147-54.
32. Huygens to his father, 7 Aug. 1674 (Oldenburg (ref. 1), xi, 235-6).
33. The repeal was voted in on 19 October 1674, following a representation of 15 October which is worth reproducing in full: It being represented, that the permitting of such, who are not of the Society, to be present at the meetings thereof, is both troublesome and prejudicial to the same, it was ordered, that the repeal of that statute which allows such an admission, and which is the second of the fourth chapter, containing the statutes about the ordinary meetings of the Society, shall be propounded at the next meeting of the Council. It being likewise represented, that the liberty of divulging what is brought in to the meetings of the Society is also prejudicial to the same, which renders divers members thereof very shy of presenting to them what they have discovered, invented, or contrived; it was moved, that a form of a statute might be prepared, injoining secrecy to the members of the Society in such matters, as shall be brought in, and by the president or vice-president declared to be kept secret, as the communicators desire. And a form to this end was proposed as follows: “Every fellow of the Royal Society shall make a solemn promise before the same, not to discover, directly or indirectly to any person, not being of the Society, such observations, experiments or other communications, as shall be brought into the meetings of the same, and there by the president or vice-presidents declared to be kept secret, at the desire of the communicator.” Birch, History (ref. 13), iii, 137-9.
34. See also Hunter M. Wood P. B., “Towards Solomon's House: Rival strategies for reforming the early Royal Society”, History of science, xxiv (1986), 49-108.
35. De Graaf to Oldenburg, 15 July 1669 (Oldenburg (ref. 1), xi, 122). This enclosure seems to have been lost in transit.
36. A classic example of the necessity of bringing over a witness to vouch for one's credentials is the case of Hevelius and Halley; see Hevelius, Annus climactericus (Danzig, 1685), esp. pp. 54-60 (a letter reprinted in Oldenburg (ref. 1), xi, 458-66) and the favourable review in Philosophical transactions, no. 180 (1686), 1162-82; and Halley to Molyneaux, 27 March 1686, in MacPikeE.,(ed.), Correspondence and papers of Edmond Halley (London, 1937), 57-60, esp. p. 60.
37. For gift-giving and patronage strategies in the Court system, see Biagioli, “Galileos system of patronage” (ref. 11), 16-22, 28-32 and 50-51, and esp. p. 19, for the concept of the gift as “probe”. Brouncker had equal access to the King and used this capability on Huygens's behalf; with respect to Biagioli's accounts of gift-giving strategies in the early seventeenth century, this episode in 1675 offers an extraordinary situation. The King regularly returned these watches to be repaired, and Hooke and Brouncker used the King's responses to their timepieces as gauges of whether their opponents were designing watches that the King found pleasing. No doubt too, the King found the dispute between the two groups highly entertaining, and only tactically allowed each side to think they had or had not gained a patent.
38. Ward J., Lives of the professors of Gresham College (London, 1740), 182). For Tompion, see Symonds R. W., Thomas Tompion: His life and work (London, 1951), esp. 4-38. See also Jagger C. S., “Robert Seignior”, Antiquarian horology, i (1953-56), 39-43.
39. see Mahoney M. S., “Christiaan Huygens: The measurement of time and of longitude at sea”, in Bos H. J. M., et al(eds), Studies on Christiaan Huygens (Lisse, 1980), 234-70.
40. Cf. Huygens to Constantyn Huygens (brother), 9 Aug. 1675 (N.S.); Huygens to De Chevreuse Duc, 31 Aug. 1675 (N.S.); Gallois to Huygens, 2 Sept. 1675 (N.S.).
41. Williamson “frowned” when Reading called Brouncker a “dog” on the 15th (Diary, 170, 176, 178, 180, and 188-9). Compare with his letter to Aubrey, on 24 August: “You best know how. I dream [?] much at setting up a select clubb, whether 'twill take I know not. As we are, we are too much enslaved to a forreine spye, and think of nothing but that, and while 'tis soe I will not doe any[thing] towards it. I have many things which I watch for an opportunity of publishing, but not by the R. S. Oldenb. his snares I will avoid if I can”, in Gunther R., Early science in Oxford (Oxford, 1930), vii, 435; and the fascinating entry for 1 Jan. 1675/6 in Diary, 205-7.
42. The Society was officially adjourned until 21 October (Birch, History (ref. 13), iii, 228; Cf. Diary (ref. 37), 186). Hooke had in fact been correcting “the last sheet” since 1 October — On the 3rd Martin had, according to Hooke, “advised him to let stand against Oldenburg”. On the 5th, Hooke met the King at Whitehall (where he told Hooke that the watch had been altered by the weather), and on the following day Hooke “shewd him the Experiment of Springs” in the Royal Closet (“He was very well pleasd”).
43. Huygens to Oldenburg, 2 Oct. 1675 (Oldenburg (ref. 1), xii, 2). This can be compared with Leibniz's accusation of early 1672/3 mentioned earlier, and with Huygens's marginal note to Oldenburg's letter of 13 September. Leibniz was at this time in Paris with Huygens and was working on watch developments of his own; in any case, Oldenburg was keeping him informed of developments. Thuret, who by now was doing excellent trade in these watches, had conceded to Huygens on 31 August in a text agreed at Versailles that his own work was based on Huygens's invention, and the rift was healed (though Thuret still insisted that he had used a spring to regulate the pendulum some years earlier). See Huygens (ref. 41), vii, 498, and Huygens to Oldenburg, 11 Nov. 1675 (Oldenburg, xii, 48-49). Thuret required the official permission of Huygens to market the watches; Huygens suggested a price (for a silver version of the watch) of 100 livres.
44. see MacKenzie D., “From Kwajalein to Armagedon? Testing and the social construction of missile accuracy”, in Gooding D. Pinch T. Schaffer S. (eds), The uses of experiment: Studies in the natural sciences (Cambridge, 1989), 409-36; idem, “Missile accuracy: A case study in the social processes of technological change”, in Bijker W. E. Hughes T. P. Pinch T. (eds), The social construction of technological systems (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 195-222, and Moran B. T., “Princes, machines, and the valuation of precision in the sixteenth century”, Sudhoffs Archiv, lxi (1977), 209-28.
45. Cf. Philosophical transactions, no. 129 (20 Nov. 1676), 749-50, and Johns A. D. S., “Piracy and usurpation: The problems of natural philosophy publishing in the scientific revolution” (typescript), 18, n. 148, which cites the relevant draft ms. concerning Martin (and signed by Brouncker) from Bl. Sloane Ms. 4441 fol.
46. Locke, Two treatises of government, ed. by Laslett P. (Cambridge, 1988), Second Treatise, secs 27 and 40; Halley to Newton, 29 June 1686, in Newton (ref. 25), ii, 443; and Westfall's account of the history of the Commercium epistolicum — In which Newton develops a complex sociology of Leibniz's plagiarism — In Never at rest (Cambridge, 1984), 725-8.
47. see Biagioli M., “Galileo the emblem maker”, Isis, lxxxi (1990), 230-58, esp. pp. 243-245.
48. Bennett J., “The mechanics' philosophy and the philosophy of the mechanics”, History of science, xxiv (1986), 1-28, pp. 6-7.
49. Hazen R. M., Superconductors: The breakthrough (London, 1988), 39.
50. Pippard B., “The need to cool it”, review of Hazen in Times literary supplement, 9-15 Dec. 1988, 1141.