The Scientific Revolution

Lesson 6: Science gets organized

This lesson covers the rise of scientific societies in the late seventeenth century, particularly England's Royal Society.

Introduction

The later seventeenth century saw the rise of organizations of scientists and others interested in natural philosophy. There had been scientific societies before, notably the Lincei of which Galileo had been a member, but these organizations had been temporary, often organized around a single patron.

The late seventeenth century groups, the Royal Society founded in London in 1660 and the Royal Academy of Sciences founded in Paris in 1666, were permanent institutions, whose successours are still around today. Scientific societies emerged in early modern Europe from the world of academies – structured gatherings of intellectuals and writers, sometimes linked to a court, but independent of a university. The academic movement was closely associated with humanism, and was originally strongest in Italy, the heartland of humanism.

The famous Platonic Academy of Florence in the late fifteenth century actively disseminated Neoplatonic philosophy and hermeticism. Early, short-lived, societies devoted to natural philosophy existed in Italy. Organized natural philosophy in the seventeenth century was sometimes presented as inspired by Francis Bacon, whose New Atlantis (1627) set forth a vision of an idealized scientific society.

Bacon’s vision went beyond the early academies, in which members carried out their own projects but met for the purpose of discussion, to a more hierarchical vision in which scientific leaders would come up with plans and subordinates carry them out.

Bacon’s influence was strongest in England, significant in France and Germany, but slight in Italy. Both England and France saw informal groups, often claiming Baconian inspiration, in the mid-seventeenth century.

The Royal Society and the Royal Academy were both located in national capitals of large kingdoms, and flaunted their connection to their monarchical patrons by using their names. Despite these similiarities, they presented fundamentally different models. The Royal Society, lacking state funding, was a gathering of natural philosophers and virtuosi, for which male gender and an interest in natural philosophy were sufficient qualifications for membership.

The Royal Academy was a professional body, whose members were paid a salary and expected to produce scholarship redounding to the glory and profit of the French state. The model of the Royal Academy proved more influential, particularly given the high prestige of French culture generally in the age of Louis XIV (r. 1643-1716), the Sun King.

The German philosopher, mathematician and scientist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a great believer in scientific organization, promoted the establishment of academies on the French model in Berlin, the capital of Prussia (founded 1700) and St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia (founded 1724, after Leibniz’s death). These academies were mostly staffed by French and other Western European scientists.

The rise of the societies saw a revolution in scientific communication, with the foundation of the first scientific journals. Reports of new work had previously circulated in letters (and continued to do so) but now appeared in printed form as well. The modern scientific world was beginning to take shape.