Moxham Noah
*University of St Andrews,School of History,St Katharine's Lodge,The Scores,St Andrews,Fife KY16 9BA,Scotland. Email:
Br J Hist Sci. 2016 Mar;49(1):27-51. doi: 10.1017/S0007087416000029. Epub 2016 Feb 15.
Richard Waller's 'Life of Dr Robert Hooke', prefixed to his edition of Hooke's Posthumous Works (1705), is an important source for the life of one of the most eminent members of the early Royal Society. It also has the distinction of being one of the earliest biographies of a man of science to be published in English. I argue that it is in fact the first biography to embrace the subject's natural-philosophical work as the centre of his life, and I investigate Waller's reasons for adopting this strategy and his struggle with the problem of how to represent an early experimental philosopher in print. I suggest that Waller eschews the 'Christian philosopher' tradition of contemporary biography - partly because of the unusually diverse and fragmentary nature of Hooke's intellectual output - and draws instead upon the structure of the Royal Society's archive as a means of organizing and understanding Hooke's life. The most quoted phrase from Waller's biography is that Hooke became 'to a crime close and reserved' in later life; this essay argues that Waller's biographical sketch was fashioned in order to undo the effects of that reserve. In modelling his approach very closely on the structure of the society's records he was principally concerned with making Hooke's work and biography accessible, intelligible and useful to the fellowship in a context familiar to them, a context which had provided the institutional framework for most of Hooke's adult life. I argue that Waller's 'Life' was also intended to make the largest claims for Hooke's intellectual standing that the author dared in the context of the enmity between Hooke and Isaac Newton once the latter became president of the Royal Society. However, I also adduce fresh manuscript evidence that Waller actually compiled, but did not publish, a defence of Hooke's claim to have discovered the inverse square law of gravity, allowing us to glimpse a much more assertive biography of Hooke than the published version.
理查德·沃勒为其编辑的胡克遗著（1705年）所撰写的《罗伯特·胡克博士的生平》，是了解早期皇家学会最杰出成员之一生平的重要资料来源。它还具有一项殊荣，即它是最早以英文出版的科学家传记之一。我认为，它实际上是第一部以该人物的自然哲学著作作为其人生核心的传记，我探究了沃勒采用这一策略的原因，以及他在如何以文字呈现一位早期实验哲学家这一问题上所面临的困难。我认为，沃勒避开了当时传记的“基督教哲学家”传统——部分原因是胡克的知识产出异常多样且零散——而是借鉴皇家学会档案的结构，以此作为组织和理解胡克生平的一种方式。沃勒传记中最常被引用的一句话是，胡克在晚年变得“对罪恶谨小慎微、沉默寡言”；本文认为，沃勒的传记简述是为了消除这种沉默寡言所带来的影响而创作的。他在很大程度上仿照学会记录的结构来构建自己的方法，主要是为了在一个对学会成员来说熟悉的背景下，使胡克的作品和生平易于理解且有用，这个背景为胡克成年后的大部分生活提供了制度框架。我认为，沃勒的《生平》还意在尽可能高地宣扬胡克的学术地位，这是作者在胡克与艾萨克·牛顿交恶（牛顿后来成为皇家学会会长）的背景下敢于做出的。然而，我也援引了新发现的手稿证据，表明沃勒实际上编写了一篇为胡克发现引力平方反比定律的说法进行辩护的文章，但并未发表，这让我们得以瞥见一部比已出版版本更具 assertive（此处可理解为“坚定有力”）的胡克传记。
