Societies and Academies
Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centers of scientific research and development. Scientific academies and societies grew out of the Scientific Revolution as the creators of scientific knowledge in contrast to the scholasticism of the university. During the Enlightenment, some societies created or retained links to universities. However, contemporary sources distinguished universities from scientific societies by claiming that the university’s utility was in the transmission of knowledge, while societies functioned to create knowledge. As the role of universities in institutionalized science began to diminish, learned societies became the cornerstone of organized science. After 1700, a big number of official academies and societies were founded in Europe and by 1789 there were over seventy official scientific societies. In reference to this growth, Bernard de Fontenelle coined the term “the Age of Academies” to describe the 18th century.
National scientific societies were founded throughout the Enlightenment era in the urban hotbeds of scientific development across Europe. In the 17th century, the Royal Society of London (1662), the Paris Académie Royale des Sciences (1666), and the Berlin Akademie der Wissenschaften (1700) were founded. In the first half of the 18th century, the Academia Scientiarum Imperialis (1724) in St. Petersburg, and the Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) (1739) were created. Many regional and provincial societies followed together with some private smaller counterparts. Official scientific societies were chartered by the state in order to provide technical expertise, which resulted in a direct and close contact between the scientific community and government bodies. State sponsorship was beneficial to the societies as it brought finance and recognition, along with a measure of freedom in management. Most societies were granted permission to oversee their own publications, control the election of new members, and the administration. Membership in academies and societies was therefore highly selective. Activities included research, experimentation, sponsoring essay prize contests, and collaborative projects between societies.
Scientific and Popular Publications
Academies and societies served to disseminate Enlightenment science by publishing the scientific works of their members as well as their proceedings. With the exception of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society by the Royal Society of London, which was published on a regular, quarterly basis, publications were usually very irregular, with periods between volumes sometimes lasting years. Many limitations of academic journals also left considerable space for the rise of independent periodicals, which excited scientific interest in the general public. While the journals of the academies primarily published scientific papers, independent periodicals were a mix of reviews, abstracts, translations of foreign texts, and sometimes derivative, reprinted materials. Most of these texts were published in the local vernacular, so their continental spread depended on the language of the readers. For example, in 1761, Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov correctly attributed the ring of light around Venus, visible during the planet’s transit, as the planet's atmosphere. However, because few scientists understood Russian outside of Russia, his discovery was not widely credited until 1910. Furthermore, with a wider audience and ever increasing publication material, specialized journals emerged, reflecting the growing division between scientific disciplines in the Enlightenment era.
Cover of the first volume of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1665-1666, the Royal Society of London.
The Philosophical Transactions was established in 1665 as the first journal in the world exclusively devoted to science. It is still published by the Royal Society, which makes it also the world's longest-running scientific journal. The use of the word "Philosophical" in the title refers to "natural philosophy," which was the equivalent of what would now be generally called science.
Although the existence of dictionaries and encyclopedias spanned into ancient times, and would be nothing new to Enlightenment readers, the texts changed from simply defining words in a long running list to far more detailed discussions of those words in 18th-century encyclopedic dictionaries. The works were part of an Enlightenment movement to systematize knowledge and provide education to a wider audience than the educated elite. As the 18th century progressed, the content of encyclopedias also changed according to readers’ tastes. Volumes tended to focus more strongly on secular affairs, particularly science and technology, rather than matters of theology. The most well-known of these works is Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert's Encyclopaedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts. The work, which began publication in 1751, was composed of thirty-five volumes and over 71 000 separate entries. A great number of the entries were dedicated to describing the sciences and crafts in detail. The massive work was arranged according to a “tree of knowledge." The tree reflected the marked division between the arts and sciences, which was largely a result of the rise of empiricism. Both areas of knowledge were united by philosophy, or the trunk of the tree of knowledge.
Science and the Public
One of the most important developments that the Enlightenment era brought to the discipline of science was its appeal to the consistently growing audience. An increasingly literate population seeking knowledge and education in both the arts and the sciences drove the expansion of print culture and the dissemination of scientific learning. An early example of science emanating from the official institutions into the public realm was the British coffeehouse. With their establishment, a new public forum for political, philosophical, and scientific discourse was created. In the mid-16th century, coffeehouses cropped up around Oxford, where the academic community began to capitalize on the unregulated conversation that the coffeehouse allowed. The new social space began to be used by some scholars as a place to discuss science and experiments outside of the laboratory of the official institution. Education was a central theme and some patrons began offering lessons and lectures to others. As coffeehouses developed in London, customers heard lectures on scientific subjects, such as astronomy and mathematics, for an exceedingly low price.
Public lecture courses offered some scientists who were unaffiliated with official organizations a forum to transmit scientific knowledge, at times even their own ideas, and the opportunity to carve out a reputation and, in some instances, a living. The public, on the other hand, gained both knowledge and entertainment from demonstration lectures. Courses varied in duration from one to four weeks, to a few months, or even the entire academic year and were offered at virtually any time of day. The importance of the lectures was not in teaching complex scientific subjects, but rather in demonstrating to the wider public the principles of scientific disciplines and encouraging discussion and debate. Barred from the universities and other institutions, women were often in attendance at demonstration lectures and constituted a significant number of auditors.
Increasing literacy rates in Europe during the course of the Enlightenment also enabled science to enter popular culture through print. More formal works included explanations of scientific theories for individuals lacking the educational background to comprehend the original scientific text. The publication of Bernard de Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686) marked the first significant work that expressed scientific theory and knowledge expressly for the laity, in the vernacular, and with the entertainment of readers in mind. The book specifically addressed women with an interest in scientific writing and inspired a variety of similar works. These popular works were written in a discursive style, which was laid out much more clearly for the reader than the complicated articles, treatises, and books published by the academies and scientists.
Science and Gender
During the Enlightenment era, women were excluded from scientific societies, universities, and learned professions. They were educated, if at all, through self-study, tutors, and by the teachings of more open-minded family members and relatives. With the exception of daughters of craftsmen, who sometimes learned their father’s profession by assisting in the workshop, learned women were primarily part of elite society. A consequence of the exclusion of women from societies and universities that prevented much independent research was their inability to access scientific instruments (e.g., microscope).
Despite these limitations, many women made valuable contributions to science during the 18th century. Two notable women who managed to participate in formal institutions were Laura Bassi and the Russian Princess Yekaterina Dashkova. Bassi was an Italian physicist who received a PhD from the University of Bologna and began teaching there in 1732. Dashkova became the director of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg in 1783. Her personal relationship with Empress Catherine the Great allowed her to obtain the position, which marked in history the first appointment of a woman to the directorship of a scientific academy. More commonly, however, women participated in the sciences as collaborators of their male relative or spouse. Others became illustrators or translators of scientific texts.
Portrait of M. and Mme Lavoisier, by Jacques-Louis David, 1788, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Women ususally participated in the sciences through an association with a male relative or spouse. For example, Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze worked collaboratively with her husband, Antoine Lavoisier. Aside from assisting in Lavoisier’s laboratory research, she was responsible for translating a number of English texts into French for her husband’s work on the new chemistry. Paulze also illustrated many of her husband’s publications, such as his Treatise on Chemistry (1789).