Friday 7th November 2025 Creatures of Reason – John Herschel and the Invention of Science

Dr Stephen Case

Friday 7th October 2025 7.30 pm in the BRLSI, Bath, and on Zoom, note that the lecture will be given remotely from the U.S. For those at the BRSLI Dr Case will be “beamed in” to the big screen.

The image is of Dr Stephen Case’s book of the same title.

Apart from his work in astronomy, John Herschel made important contributions to mathematics, optics, geology, photography, and chemistry. Perhaps most lasting though was the role Herschel played in defining what it meant to “do science” or “be scientific” in the Victorian period. Over the course of his early career, Herschel became a prime mover in the European scientific community, gaining wide influence and credibility that his father– despite his remarkable telescopic discoveries– never achieved. 

In this talk, I show how John Herschel’s education, travel, correspondence, and pivotal roles in both the Astronomical Society of London and the Royal Society, including his failed bid for Royal Society presidency, culminated in the publication of his Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. Through this text and his own career, Herschel gave natural philosophy the contours of modern science.

Stephen Case, PhD, is a historian of science and professor in the department of Chemistry and the Geosciences at Olivet Nazarene University. He is the author of Making Stars Physical: the Astronomy of Sir John Herschel (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018) and Creatures of Reason: John Herschel and the Invention of Science (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) and is co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to John Herschel (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

A video recording of this lecture is available here.