In this wonderfully literary book, Richard Holmes recreates the lives of the British men, and some women, who, lacking the basics of a formal education, revolutionized the world of science in the years that stride the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. It is a book about the Romantic age of scientific discovery as lived in Great Britain, with only glimpses of the continent or America.
My only reading about men of science happened in school text books, where science takes center stage, and the discoverer gets introduced in a couple paragraphs, if at all. Here, Richard Holmes stays with his subjects, from their rich, humble, obscure, adventurous, hard working beginnings, to the often disillusioned end. Their achievements are further enhanced when seen in the context of their time and the hurdles they had to overcome in order to succeed.
William Hershell (born in Germany, who lived and made his discoveries in England, with English patrons’ support) built himself, by hand, the forty foot telescope, including its magnificent mirror, that allowed him to discover Uranus and, with his sister Caroline, thousands of comets and an equally large number of galaxies, expanding our solar system and our universe beyond anyone’s imagination.
A couple paper makers (these two were French) decided to blow hot air into an enormous paper bag, and men (and women) flew for the first time.
Humphrey Davy discovered laughing gas, chlorine, iodine and the safety lamp. Mungo Park explored Africa, boldly going where no white man had gone before.
Some of them wrote poetry, some of it quite good. They saw no distinction between science and art. Coleridge, Shelley and Shelley’s wife, Mary, lived among them, and it’s only in understanding this generation of people that one can truly comprehend how she came up with the enduring tale of Dr. Frankenstein and his monstrous creation.
Presiding over all of them was Sir Joseph Banks, who in his youth traveled to the South Seas with Captain Cook in the Endeavor, enjoying a jolly good time cavorting with the welcoming Tahiti natives, and collecting botanical samples. Upon return to England, Banks became president of the Royal Academy and a life long patron to them all.
The term “scientist” had yet to be invented. These astronomers, physicists, Chemists, poets, writers, botanists called themselves philosophers. They had the power to astonish admiring audiences. They welcomed a world of fact, experimentation, progress, and understanding of the workings of nature. They did not find God in it. In creating the word “scientist,” someone compared it to “atheist,” to the chagrin of the most conservative members of society. But the word took.
As science progressed (Darwin was part of the next generation) it eventually split from art and literature. A loss to everyone, I’m sure. When Mr. Holmes takes us to the end of Hershell’s, Banks’s and Davy’s lives, the reader (me) had to take a minute to grieve. Richard Holmes manages, successfully, what Dr. Frankenstein could not – to bring the dead back to life.
I couldn’t think of a better book for a young scientist mind with literary tastes. I hope you like it half as much as I do.
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