Marie Boas Hall,
Promoting experimental learning: experiment and the Royal Society, 1660-1727
. Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 207, £35.00 ISBN 0-521-40503-3 In her welcome new book, Marie Hall traces the development and the subsequent decline of the public demonstration of experiments at the weekly meetings of the Royal Society, from the foundation in late 1660 to the end of Newton’s Presidency, at his death in 1727. The history is divided into three periods: the early optimistic Baconian phase, from 1660 to the mid-1670s; the more sombre middle period of the last quarter of the 17th century, when the attempted recapture of the early ideals met with only modest success; and the years spanned by Newton’s Presidency (1703- 27), when ‘Experiments of Fruit’ were largely abandoned in favour of ‘Experiments of Light’, and attention turned from useful inventions to the natural philosophy of a time-bounded universe in the steady-state, with its theosophic and theotechnic implications.