Table Of ContentThe Savant and the State
the johns hopkins university
studies in historical and political science
130th series (2012)
1. Kurt C. Schlichting, Grand Central’s Engineer: William J. Wilgus and
the Planning of Modern Manhattan
2. Joseph November, Biomedical Computing: Digitizing Life
in the United States
3. Robert Fox, Th e Savant and the State: Science and Cultural Politics in
Nineteenth-Century France
·The Savant and the State ·
SCIENCE AND CULTURAL POLITICS
IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE
·
Robert Fox
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2012
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fox, Robert, 1938–
The savant and the state : science and cultural politics in
nineteenth-century France / Robert Fox.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
(Th e Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science)
ISBN 978-1-4214-0522-3 (hdbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-4214-0522-9 (hdbk. : alk. paper)
1. Science and state—France—History—19th century. 2. Science—France—
History—19th century. I. Title.
Q127.F8F694 2012
509.44(cid:2)09034—dc23 2011048390
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contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
chapter1 Science and the New Order 9
The Return of the Bourbons 11
Patronage, Authority, and the Profession of Science 18
Science and the Industrial Age 28
A Philosophy for the Times: The Roots of Positivism 39
chapter2 Voices on the Periphery 52
Academies and Societies 53
The Devotee: Nature, Learning, and Locality 62
Science and Decentralization 73
The Triumph of the Center 83
chapter3 Science, Bureaucracy, and the Empire 94
The Trials of Academic Science 95
Education, Industry, and the Imperial State 103
The Bureaucracy of Learning 112
The Roots of Academic Reform 126
chapter4 Science, Philosophy, and the Culture of Secularism 138
The Midcentury: Conformity and Dissent in French Philosophy 139
The Nature of Life: Pasteur–Pouchet Revisited 148
The Radical Synthesis and Its Enemies 159
A Faith for the Age: The Religion of Humanity 174
chapter5 Science for All 184
Fashioning the Audience 185
Masters of the Mass Market: Flammarion and Figuier 195
The Spoken Word 207
Broader Audiences, Bigger Stakes 214
vi Contents
chapter 6 The Public Face of Republican Science 227
The Savant at War and Peace 228
Countercurrents: Science in the Catholic Tradition 241
The Republic of the Savants 250
Fin de Siècle: From Inspiration to Anxiety 259
Conclusion 274
Appendix A The French System of Education and Research 285
Appendix B Exchange Rates and Incomes in Nineteenth-Century France 291
Abbreviations 293
Notes 297
Bibliographical Note 365
Index 377
Illustrations follow page 126
preface
Th is is a book with distant roots. My idea of writing a broadly cast cultural history of
nineteenth-century French science originated in the mid-1980s, when a British Acad-
emy Readership in the Humanities allowed me three years of leave from normal duties
at the University of Lancaster. Since then, work on the book has had to compete with
other preoccupations, and my conception of it has evolved considerably. In this process,
discussions with colleagues and students in Oxford have been important, as have op-
portunities for research and writing in a number of other locations in Europe and the
United States.
As director of the Centre de recherche en histoire des sciences et des techniques
at the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie and directeur de recherché associé in the CNRS
between 1986 and 1988, I enjoyed an extended period of closeness to my sources. Since
then a further stay in Paris, as directeur d’études associé in the Ecole des hautes études en
sciences sociales, hosted by André Grelon, has allowed me to build on that privilege.
Elsewhere, periods of intense writing at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton;
the Bellagio Conference Centre; the Deutsches Museum, Munich; and Corpus Christi
College and Clare Hall, Cambridge, came at crucial times, as did a term of additional
leave from Oxford in 2005, fi nanced by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
More recently, semesters spent as a visiting professor in the Department of History of
Science and Technology, the Johns Hopkins University, and at the Department of His-
tory at East Carolina University have proved particularly fruitful.
Along the way, the Faculty of History at Oxford has always been generous in its sup-
port. Here I make special mention of Stephanie Jenkins, who with exemplary patience
and attention to detail typed successive versions of a manuscript that has changed its form
more than I care to remember. I am also indebted to Georgia Petrou for her assistance
with an early version of the index and to the many librarians and archivists who helped
to make research both effi cient and a pleasure. On this score, the unfailingly helpful staff
of Oxford’s Bodleian and Radcliff e Science Libraries deserve especially warm thanks.
As the book neared completion, Charles Gillispie and Miriam Levin read the manu-
viii Preface
script with a sympathetic but critical eye. Th e book is signifi cantly the better for the re-
working that their perceptive comments led me to undertake.
In the fi nal stages, I have had the pleasure of working with the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press. Th ere I was fortunate to meet an editor, Bob Brugger, who has never wa-
vered in his support for the project. I have also benefi ted from the meticulous editorial
skills of Michele Callaghan and from the help I received at various stages from Kara
Reiter and Josh Tong.
The Savant and the State
