Nervous Conditions: Science and the Body Politic in Early Industrial BritainNervous Conditions explores the role of the body in the development of modern science, challenging the myth that modern science is built on a bedrock of objectivity and confident empiricism. In this fascinating look into the private world of British natural philosophers—including John Dalton, Lord Kelvin, Charles Babbage, John Herschel, and many others—Elizabeth Green Musselman shows how the internal workings of their bodies played an important part in the sciences' movement to the center of modern life, and how a scientific community and a nation struggled their way into existence. Many of these natural philosophers endured serious nervous difficulties, particularly vision problems. They turned these weaknesses into strengths, however, by claiming that their well-disciplined mental skills enabled them to transcend their bodily frailties. Their adeptness at transcendence, they asserted, explained why men of science belonged at the heart of modern life, and qualified them to address such problems as unifying the British provinces into one nation, managing the industrial workplace, and accommodating religious plurality. |
Contents
3 | |
2 The Social Hierarchy of Subjectivity | 30 |
3 Provincialism and Color Blindness | 55 |
4 Mental Governance and Hemiopsy | 101 |
5 Rational Faith and Hallucination | 146 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
achieve active Airy apparitions appeared argued attention Babbage became become believed blue body Brewster British called cause chapter Charles color blindness considered continued culture Dalton David Brewster described developed discussed early early industrial effects engine especially example experience experimental explain fact faculties Figure forms George hallucination hemiopsy Henry History human ideas imagination important individual industrial instance interest John Herschel kind knowledge later laws Letters light machine manage Maxwell meaning mechanical mental methods mind moral natural philosophers nervous never nineteenth century normal noted object observer ofthe optical organ original perception period person phenomena physical physician physiology political popular problem produced provincial Quaker rational reason reported scientific seemed seen sensations sense simple sought standard tests theory thought tion turn understanding University vision visual women
Popular passages
Page 237 - The Principles of Mental Physiology. With their Applications to the Training and Discipline of the Mind, and the Study of its Morbid Conditions.