ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

‘A Meer Play-Thing, a Matter of Amusement and Fancy Only’: The Scientific Value of Play in Eighteenth-Century Microscopy

• In Event: New Perspectives on Science in the Enlightenment

English Abstract

Historians of science typically argue the microscope declined from an instrument of scientific investigation to an object of idle amusement by the eighteenth century. Scholars have described the microscope in this period as little more than an expensive toy that contributed to polite society, not science. In response, scholars arguing for the scientific value of the microscope in this period pitch themselves against the depiction of the microscope as an object of entertainment. Rejecting the association between the microscope and play has therefore become the prerequisite for demonstrating the scientific contributions of the instrument in eighteenth-century England.

My paper challenges this narrative by arguing for the scientific value of entertainment and play in eighteenth-century microscopy. It will explore how these qualities informed not impeded the microscope’s contribution to science and pedagogy, emphasising the importance of amusement in the construction and dissemination of natural knowledge. I will begin by examining the influences behind the microscope’s association with play. Then, I will explore contemporary conceptualisations of leisure to unpack the uneasy relationship between industrious and idle experimental practice. Finally, I will argue for the symbolic influence of childhood in depictions of the microscope as an adult toy, and consider the influence this had on the language and imagery of microscopy. Overall, I will argue that historians of eighteenth-century microscopy must be willing to accept the significance of play within contemporary experimental practice and, by extension, differentiate between acceptable and transgressive definitions of entertainment in the context of Georgian science.

Author

• Emily Ruth Whittingham, University of York