Academies

It is a commonplace to see organized science as "entirely recast under the dominion" of the scientific academies and societies of the 18th century.^[19] Scientific academies and societies played a significant role in establishing the importance and extending the application of mathematical or quantitative methods. Much recent literature addresses questions of the founding and organization of academies and societies, and may thus enlighten us about the 18th-century disciplinary map. It may also contain clues about the place of mathematics and the mathematically adept in these institutions and about the ways in which academic prestige or authority could encourage the use of mathematics. Recent studies look at academies and societies in general^[20] and in particular.^[21] Studies of the use of mathematical

[19] James E. McClellan III, Science reorganized: Scientific societies in the 18th century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), xix.

[20] Ibid.; Daniel Roche, Le siècle des lumières en province: Académies et académiciens provinciaux, 1680–1789 , 2 vols. (Paris: Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, Mouton, 1978); Henry E. Lowood, Patriotism, profit, and the promotion of science in the German enlightenment: The economic and scientific societies, 1760–1815 (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1987; DAI 49/06A, 1563).

[21] David M. Griffiths, "The early years of the Petersburg Academy of sciences as reflected in recent Soviet literature," Canadian-American Slavic studies, 14 (1980), 436–45; Elizabeth R. Kindleberger, The Société Royal des Sciences de Montpellier, 1706–1793 (Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1979; DAI 40/05A, 2816); Roy S. Porter, "Science, provincial culture, and public opinion in Enlightenment England," British journal for eighteenth-century studies, 3 (1980), 2–46; Roger L. Emerson, "The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, 1748–1768," British journal of history of science, 14 (1981), 133–76; Rhoda Rappaport, "The liberties of the Paris Academy of Sciences, 1716–1785," in Harry Woolf, ed., The analytic spirit: Essays in the history of science in honor of Henry Guerlac (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), 225–53; James R. Hansen, Scientific fellowship in a Swiss community enlightenment: A history of Zurich's Physical Society, 1746–1798 (Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1981; DAI 42/05A, 2269); Ludwig Hammermayer, Geschichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1759–1807 , 2 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1983); Vincenzo Ferrone, "Tecnocrati militari e scienziati nel Piemonte dell'Antico Regime: Alle origini della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino," Rivista di storia italiana, 96 (1984), 414–509; James E. McClellan III, "The Académie Royale des Sciences, 1699–1793: A statistical portrait," Isis, 72 (1981), 541–76; Ugo Baldini, "L'attività scientifica nelle accademie lombarde del Settecento," in Economia, istituzioni, cultura in Lombardia nell'età di Maria Teresa , 3 vols. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982), 2, 503–32; Valeria Molla Losito, "La Società Patriottica di Milano (1776–1796)," in ibid., 3, 1039–56; Andreas Kleinert, "Mathematik und anorganische Naturwissenschaften," in Rudolf Vierhaus, ed., Wissenschaften im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Göttingen: Vendenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985), 218–48, esp. section IV; Michel Taillefer, Une académie interprète des Lumières: L'Académie des Sciences, Inscriptions, et Belles-Lettres de Toulouse au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: CNRS, 1984).

methods in the 18th century might follow the lead of works that discuss the place of particular sciences in specific academic contexts.^[22]

Studies that examine the role of individuals in academies and hence in the life of science, especially in conjunction with archival or edited correspondence, promise useful information. Historians have begun, for example, to trace the powerful academic influence of Leonhard Euler.^[23] Analysis of the éloges of the Paris Academy of Sciences yields insights both about its perpetual secretaries, including Fontenelle and Condorcet, and about the scientific ideologies and standards they promoted.^[24] The publications and prizes of academies and societies served to spread the quantifying spirit, and deserve more attention.

[22] E.g., E.P. Ozhigova, Matematika v Peterburgskoy Akademii Nauk v kontse XVIII–pervoy polovine XIX veka (Leningrad: Nauka, 1980); Jacqueline Giroux, "Genèse de la météorologie scientifique dans les milieux de l'Académie de Dijon au XVIIIe siècle," Académie des sciences, arts, et belles-lettres (Dijon), Mémoires, 125 (1981–2), 135–55; Dhombres, "Mathématisation" (note 18). Cf. Theodore S. Feldman, The history of meteorology, 1750–1800: A study in the quantification of experimental physics (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1983, DAI 43/05A, 922); and Karl Hufbauer, The formation of the German chemical community, 1720–1795 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).

[23] Wolfgang Knobloch, ed., Leonhard Eulers Wirken an der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1741–1766: Specialinventar Regesten der Euler-Documente aus dem Zentralen Archiv der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1974); Leonhard Euler, 1707–1783: Beiträge zu Leben und Werk (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1983), including Judith Kh. Kopelevic, "L. Euler und die Petersburger Akademie," 373–84; Rüdiger Thiele, Leonhard Euler (Leipzig: BSB B.G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, 1982).

[24] Paul, Science and immortality (note 11).