Other Directions

It is in the nature of bibliographical essays to point to topics or directions of research worth pursuing. Out of the diversity of the chapters in this volume on The quantifying spirit , as well as from a

[36] For bibliography, see Ronald J. Caldwell, The era of the French Revolution: A bibliography of the history of western civilization, 1789–1799 , 2 vols. (New York: Garland Pub., 1985) and Aux livres citoyens! (Livry Gargan: Sciences Sociales Export, 1989), reprinted from a special issue of Préfaces , 1989; cf. Samuel F. Scott and Barry Rothaus, eds., Historical dictionary of the French Revolution 1789–1799 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985). On a pre-revolutionary reform proposal, see Arnold de Lesseux, "L'éducation publique d'après Guyton de Morveau," Académie des sciences, arts, et belles-lettres (Dijon), Mémoires, 123 (1976–8; published 1979), 207–39.

[37] In general, Robert R. Palmer, The improvement of humanity: Education and the French Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); John Lough, The philosophes and post-revolutionary France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982); Jean Dhombres, "Formation des cadres scientifiques et techniques: La marque des débuts de la Révolution," Institut des recherches marxistes, Cahiers d'histoire, 32 (1988), 189–200; and Janis Langins, La République avait besoin de savants: Les débuts de L'Ecole Polytechnique—L'Ecole Centrale des Travaux Publics et les cours révolutionnaires de l'an III (Paris: Belin, 1987). On the Ecole polytechnique, Terry Shinn, L'Ecole polytechnique: 1794–1914 (Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1980); Ambroise Fourcy, Histoire de l'Ecole polytechnique , new ed. (Paris: Belin, 1987); Jean-Pierre Callot with Philippe Journau, Histoire de l'Ecole polytechnique (Paris: Charles Lavauzelle, 1982); Janis Langins, The Ecole Polytechnique (1794–1804): From encyclopaedic school to military institution (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1979; DAI 40/12A, 6396); Ivor Grattan-Guinness, "Euler's mathematics in French science, 1795–1815," in Leonhard Euler, 1707–1783: Beiträge zu Leben und Werk (note 23), 395–408, esp. section 6. On the role of mathematicians in educational reform, Langins, "Sur l'enseignement et les examens à l'Ecole Polytechnique sous la Directoire: À propos d'une lettre inédite de Laplace," Revue d'histoire des sciences, 40 (1987), 145–177; Catherine Kintzler, Condorcet: L'instruction publique et la naissance du citoyen (Paris: Le Sycomore, 1984); Langins, "Une lettre inédite de Fourier sur l'enseignement destiné aux ingénieurs en 1797," Revue d'histoire des sciences, 34 (1981), 193–207; Robin E. Rider, "Poisson and algebra: Against an 18th-century background," Michael Métivier, Pierre Costabel, and Pierre Dugac, eds., Siméon Denis Poisson et la science de son temps (Paris: Ecole polytechnique, 1981), 167–76; Eduard Glas, "On the dynamics of mathematical change in the case of Monge and the French Revolution," Studies in history and philosophy of science, 17 (1986), 249–68.

survey of recent literature on the 18th century, emerge a number of possibilities, which may be collected under headings of economics and polity, discourse, and evidence of opposition.

Economics and Polity

In the discussions (in the "Introductory essay" and chapters 5, 6, 10, 11, and 12) of political arithmetic, economic development and policy, and meteorology, as well as in the work of Keith Baker and Charles Gillispie, we see signposts pointing to economics and polity as loci for the operation of the quantifying spirit. Vital statistics had economic value to tax collectors, conscription agents, and actuaries, and government bureaus and functionaries sought to police health as they managed princely coffers, coal, bread, and trees. The expanding literature on vital statistics and on public medicine in the 18th century thus promises a reasonable return on scholarly investment.^[38]

[38] Studies of medicine and public welfare include, but should scarcely be limited to, Theodore M. Brown, "J.P. Frank's 'Medical police' and its implications for medicalization in America," in Marten de Vries et al., eds., The use and abuse of medicine (New York: Praeger, 1982), 208–18; Othmar Keel, "The politics of health and the institutionalisation of clinical practices in Europe in the second half of the 18th century," in W.F. Bynum and Roy Porter, eds., William Hunter and the 18th-century medical world (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Mary E. Lindemann, Producing policed man: Poor relief, population policies, and medical care in Hamburg, 1750–1806 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1980; DAI 41/10A, 4474); Harvey Mitchell, "Politics in the service of knowledge: The debate over the administration of medicine and welfare in late 18th-century France," Social history, 6 (1981), 185–207; Jean-Pierre Goubert, "The medicalization of French society at the end of the Ancien Régime," in Lloyd G. Stevenson, ed., A celebration of medical history (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 157–79. On vital statistics and demography, see J. Hoock, "Sciences camérales et statistique démographique en Allemagne aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles," Annales de démographie historique (1979), 145–55; Jacqueline Hecht, "Johann Peter Süssmilch. Point alpha ou omega de la science démographique naive," ibid. (1979), 101–34; Peter Buck, "People who counted: Political arithmetic in the 18th century," Isis, 73 (1982), 28–45; Thomas R. Forbes, "Births and deaths in a London parish: The record from the registers, 1654–1693 and 1729–1743," Bulletin of the history of medicine, 55 (1981), 371–91; Patricia Cline Cohen, "Death and taxes: The domain of numbers in 18th century popular culture," in Stephen H. Cutcliffe, ed., Science and technology in the 18th century: Essays of the Lawrence Henry Gipson Institute for 18th Century Studies (Bethlehem, Penn.: Gipson Institute, 1984) and her A calculating people (note 16); Pehr Wargentin, den svenska statisikens fader: En minnesskriff me sju originaluppsatser ur Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar för åren 1754, 1755 samt 1766 (Stockholm: Statistika Centralbyrån, 1983); J. Lecuir, "Deux siècles après: Montyon, véritable auteur des 'Recherches et considérations sur la population de la France' de Moheau," Annales de démographie historique (1979), 195–249; William Coleman, "Inventing demography: Montyon on hygiene and the state," in Everett Mendelsohn, ed., Transformation and tradition in the sciences: Essays in honor of I. Bernard Cohen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 215–33. On J.S. Mill's skepticism in the face of vital statistics, see Spencer Davis, "Scottish philosophy and political economy," in Donald C. Mell, Jr., et al., eds., Man, God, and nature in the Enlightenment (East Lansing, Mich.: Colleagues Press, 1988).

Cameralism and political economy, as they developed in theory and practice and in local and national settings, should not be ignored,^[39] nor studies of Adam Smith, influences on him, and impact of his ideas.^[40] The economic writings and policies of Physiocrats and Idéologues, especially as they relate to the philosophes and to intellectual movements in the Enlightenment, merit another look with the quantifying spirit in mind.^[41] The economic and political import of

[39] On political economy, Keith Tribe, "University teaching on cameralism in 18th-century Germany," Studi settecenteschi, 7–8 (1985–6), 55–69, and his Governing economy: The reformation of German economic discourse, 1750–1840 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Terence Hutchison, Before Adam Smith: The emergence of political economy, 1662–1776 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988); Sergio Cremaschi, Il sistema della ricchezza: Economia politica e problema del metodo in Adam Smith (Milan: Angeli, 1984); Girolamo Imbruglia, "Economia e politica nel De l'esprit di Helvétius," Naples, University, Facoltà di Lettere, Filosofia e Magistero, Annali, 20 (1977–8), 237–81; Hans Erich Bödeker, "Der staatswissenschaftliche Fächersystem im 18. Jahrhundert," in Wissenschaften im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, 143–62; F. Etner, "L'Ancien Régime et le calcul économique," Enconomy and society, 18:3 (1984), special issue on "Aspects de l'économie politique en France au XVIIIe siècle," and his book on "calcul économique" in France. On 18th-century appeals to quantification and classification in social analysis, P.J. Corfield, "Class by name and number in 18th-century Britain," History, 72 (1987), 38–61; Gianni Vaggi, "Social classes and income distribution in 18th-century economics," History of European ideas, 9 (1988), 171–82.

[40] Among them, Andrew S. Skinner, "Adam Smith: Rhetoric and the communication of ideas," in A.W. Coats, ed., Methodological controversy in economics: Historical essays in honor of T.W. Hutchison (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1983), 71–88; Donald Winch, "Science and the legislator: Adam Smith and after," Economics journal, 93 (1983), 501–20; M. Dey, Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson: Philosophy, economic change, and class limitations in 18th-century Scotland (Ph.D. dissertation, Aberdeen University, 1985); Cremaschi, Il sistema della ricchezza (note 39); Norriss S. Hetherington, "Isaac Newton's influence on Adam Smith's natural laws in economics," Journal of the history of ideas, 44 (1983), 497–505; Adam Smith, Essays on philosophical subjects, ed. W.P.D. Wightman and J.C. Bryce (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), one in a set of recent scholarly editions of Adam Smith's writings; R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner, Adam Smith (London: Croom Helm, 1982); cf. Martha Bolar Lightwood, A selected bibliography of significant works about Adam Smith (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984).

[41] Gianni Vaggi, The economics of François Quesnay (Durham, N. Car.: Duke University Press, 1987); Christian Bordes and J. Morange, eds., Turgot, économiste et administrateur (Paris: PUF, [1981]); Marco Minerbi, "I presupposti dell'analisi economica del fisiocratici," in Lezioni sull'illuminismo (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1980); Daniel Klein, "Deductive economic methodology in the French Enlightenment: Condillac and Destutt de Tracy," History of political economy, 17 (1985), 51–71; Stephen F. Gudeman, "Physiocracy: A natural economics," American ethnologist, 7 (1980), 240–58; Leonora Cohen Rosenfield, "La Mettrie and Quesnay, physician-philosophes of the Enlightenment," in Alfred J. Bingham and Virgil W. Topazio, eds., Enlightenment studies in honour of Lester G. Crocker (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1979); cf. Hutchison, Before Adam Smith (note 39).

scientism and the place of mathematics in scientism have relevance as well.^[42]

Discourse

Mathematical metaphors and images frequently found their way into discourse in the 18th century, whatever the topic, and hence illustrate both the cultural appeal of quantification and a means by which the quantification message was reinforced and spread. Studies of language for other scientific fields explore the malleability and power of metaphor, and suggest useful approaches for considering the language of quantification.^[43]

[42] A few titles are Keith Michael Baker, "Scientism at the end of the Old Regime: Reflections on a theme of Professor Charles Gillispie," Minerva, 25 (1987), 21–34; Paul Alkon, "Changing the calendar," Eighteenth-century life, 7:2 (1982), 1–18; Harvey Mitchell, "Politics in the service of knowledge: The debate over the administration of medicine and welfare in late 18th-century France," Social history, 6 (1981), 185–207.

[43] See, for example, Geoffrey Cantor, "Weighing light: The role of metaphor in 18th-century optical discourse," in Andrew E. Benjamin et al., eds., The figural and the literal: Problems of language in the history of science and philosophy, 1630–1800 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), 124–46; Wilda C. Anderson, Between the library and the laboratory: The language of chemistry in eighteenth-century France (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984); Rhoda Rappaport, "Borrowed words: Problems of vocabulary in 18th-century geology," British journal for the history of science, 15 (1982), 27–44; Imbruglia, "Economia e politica nel De l'esprit di Helvétius" (note 39); Tribe, Governing economy (note 39); Martin Rudwick, "The emergence of a visual language of geology, 1760–1840," History of science, 14 (1976), 149–95; cf. Roger Lewinter, "La quadrature du cercle: Remarques sur Diderot et l'Encyclopédie," Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 89 (1984), 226–31. Cantor speaks of metaphors as "malleable" (142) and claims that they quietly direct research.

Opposition

If there was a quantifying spirit or esprit géométrique in the 18th century, there was surely a critical spirit as well, and the voices raised in favor of rethinking the place and power of mathematics and quantification ought also to be heeded. Buffon's criticism of mathematics and Diderot's quotable doubts about the future of mathematics^[44] speak to the prevailing faith in mathematics and mathematicians.^[45] Even d'Alembert wrote with some skepticism about the "esprit de calcul," which he saw as the dominant "goût de philosophie" in the 18th century.^[46] Tracts that decried the "abuse of mathematics in natural science,"^[47] need to be set against 18th-century pæans in praise of mathematics.

The bibliographical burden can be made more enjoyable by seeing how mathematics and quantification fared in 18th-century scientific satires. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver watched savants labor to extract sunbeams from cucumbers; he heard their scheme for establishing a

[44] In On the interpretation of nature , quoted for example in Ernst Cassirer, The philosophy of the Enlightenment , transl. Fritz C.A. Koelln and James P. Pettegrove (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), 74; cf. Hankins, Science and the Enlightenment (note 11), 169.

[45] On Diderot and mathematics, Jean Dhombres, "Quelques rencontres de Diderot avec les mathématiques," in Anne-Marie Chouillet, ed., Colloque international Diderot (1713–1784) (Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1985); Robert Morin, Diderot et l'imagination (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1987), esp. the chapter on mathematical imagination; Michael Kessler, "A puzzle concerning Diderot's presentation of Saunderson's Palpable arithmetic," Diderot studies, 20 (1981), 159–73; Merle L. Perkins, Diderot and the time-space continuum: His philosophy, aesthetics and politics, Studies on Voltaire and the 18th century, 211 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1982), esp. chaps. 3–4; Charles Dedeyan, Diderot et la pensée anglaise (Florence: Olschki, 1987), part III; Renate Wahsner, "Das Verhältnis von Mathematik und Physik aus der Sicht von Denis Diderot," NTM, 24 (1987), 13–20; Anne-Marie Chouillet, ed., 1984; L'année Diderot , supplement to Dix-huitième siècle, 17 (1985); and Frederick A. Spear, Bibliographie de Diderot: Repertoire analytique international , Historie des idées et critique littéraire, 187 (Geneva: Droz, 1980), and its supplements.

[46] Encyclopédie, 6 (1756), s.v. "Fluide," quoted in Costabel, "Euler lecteur de Descartes" (note 13), 287. Nonetheless, Costabel considers that it was confidence in mathematics that "profoundly united Euler and d'Alembert," whatever their differences (p. 286). Cf. d'Alembert, Essai d'une nouvelle théorie de la résistance des fluides (Paris: Chez David l'ainé, 1752).

[47] Giuseppe Mosca, Vita di Giovambattista Morgagni. . .con due lettere, l'una intorno all'abuso della matematica nella scienza naturale (Naples: V. Manfredi, 1764).

universal language by abolishing all words; and he talked with an innovative projector in speculative learning. This worthy had secured the services of forty pupils to crank the handles on a frame twenty feet square: it carried a grid of "all of the Words of their language," based on careful computation of the proportions obtaining among the various parts of speech. Commanded first to crank, then to read and record the results, the pupils might thereby generate automatically books on all arts and sciences.^[48] That is not the method by which this book or this essay was composed.

[48] Daryll M. Anderson, Satires of science in the 17th and 18th centuries (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Louisville, 1980; DAI 41/07A, 3114); Olson, "Tory-High Church opposition" (note 12); Brooks and Aalto, "The rise and fall of moral algebra" (note 17); Eric A. Weiss, "Jonathan Swift's computing invention," Annals of the history of computing, 7 (1985), 164–5, which reproduces a portion of chap. 5 of Gulliver's third voyage.