Helene Metzger

Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci., Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 203–241, 2001  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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He´le`ne Metzger: The History of Science between the Study of Mentalities and Total History Cristina Chimisso* In this article, I examine the historiographical ideas of the historian of chemistry He´le`ne Metzger (1886–1944) against the background of the ideas of the members of the groups and institutions in which she worked, including Alexandre Koyre´, Gaston Bachelard, Abel Rey, Henri Berr and Lucien Febrve. This article is on two interdependent levels: that of particular institutions and groups in which she worked (the Centre de Synthe`se, the International Committee for History of Science, the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques (Sorbonne) and the E´cole Pratique des Hautes E´tudes) and that of historiographical ideas. I individuate two particular theoretical aspirations pursued by the historians in Metzger’s milieu: the ideal of total history and the study of the human mind. These two objectives were seen by Metzger and many others as implicating each other. Moreover, Metzger and other historians wanted to integrate the practice of commentary of texts in the realisations of those ideals. I argue, however, that these objectives proved very difficult to realise at the same time. One tradition which stemmed out of these discussions, exemplified by Bachelard, Canguilhem and Foucault, focused on the mind and knowledge, and renounced commentary of texts and total history as it was understood by the historians of the Centre de Synthe`se. The latter, however, did not really pursue the study of the mind. Moreover, historians like Metzger and Koyre´ who practised an attentive analysis of texts could not realise total history.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Metzger; Koyre´; Berr; Bachelard; Canguilhem; Foucault; Historiography; Mentalities.

1. Introduction In the inter-war period, the history of the sciences in France underwent an important expansion both in conventional institutional spaces such as the Sorbonne and in independent groups such as the Centre de Synthe`se. In these places, the * Department of Philosophy, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, U.K. Web page: http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/philos/chimisso.htm (e-mail: c.chimisso@open.ac.uk) Received 20 October 2000; in revised form 8 December 2000.

PII: S0039-3681(01)00006-1 203

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project of a new history of science started taking shape. This new history of science was intended to be a general history of science as opposed to the specific histories of the various sciences generally taught in science faculties. In the intentions of many historians of science, including Abel Rey, director of the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques at the Sorbonne, their discipline was to play a role far more important than as a curiosity for science students. Indeed, they regarded general history of science as the pivot of historical studies and at the same time as able to satisfy crucial theoretical aspirations; in particular, many philosophers practised history of science and regarded it as the best means to investigate limits, capabilities and development of the human mind.

Given the will thoroughly to reform history of science which animated many historians and philosophers, it comes as no surprise that historiographical reflection was very much at the forefront. Indeed, their theoretical declarations, discussions and works were often far more daring than their actual historical work. From a theoretical point of view, two objectives appear to pervade much of the historiographical preoccupations of historians of science (and other historians) in this period: total history and the study of the human mind. These two ideals were intimately connected. Total history was believed to provide a key to the understanding of the ‘mentality’ of the period under study, and as a consequence, a better comprehension of documents and texts. The study of different mentalities was seen as study of the human mind in its historical development. The mind was the object of study for philosophers, ethnologists, psychologists and sociologists. The institutional links between these disciplines were remarkably strong, if complex and undergoing evolution. The word ‘mentality’ had spread quickly among these disciplines, including history of science. Originally, it had been introduced by Lucien Le´ vy-Bruhl, historian of philosophy and founder of the Institute of Ethnology at the Sorbonne and of the discipline at large in France.

In this article, I shall examine the historiographical ideas of one particular historian of science: He´ le`ne Metzger, ne´ e Bruhl (born 1886 at Chatou en Seineet-Oise, died en route to Auschwitz in 1944). The ideals of total history and of the knowledge of the human mind are central to her historiography as expressed in theoretical articles, talks, lectures, in her philosophical book-length work, Les concepts scientifiques (1926), and in her works on history of chemistry.

While Metzger’s works on history of chemistry have become classics in their own right, her historiographical thought, dispersed in talks and introductions to her books, has not received the attention which without doubt it deserves. She held positions of responsibility in the Centre de Synthe`se and the International Committee for History of Science; lectured at the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques (IHST) and the E´ cole Pratique des Hautes E´ tudes (EPHE). However, she was somewhat marginal, as she never had a proper academic job, or any salaried job at all. Academic careers in France as elsewhere, then as now, demand, officially or unofficially, the fulfilment of requirements

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the weight of which vary according to times and circumstances. The most obvious ones are academic titles, social background, family and social connections and gender. Metzger’s presence in the important institutions for her discipline and her marginality can be analysed in terms of her only partial fulfilment of those requirements.

Through Metzger, we shall visit the places where this new historiography was being elaborated. In this story, groups are more central than individual intellectuals, and our journey will take us to visit places of debate about the historiography of the sciences. The first leg of this journey will show us how Metzger created a space for herself in the world (of history of science). We shall see the way in which Metzger managed to enter the world of history of science in the light of her social background, biography and education. Her conception of history of science is also important in her itinerary, as she found her work appreciated by philosophers and not by the scientific milieu with which she was familiar as a chemistry student. People whom she encountered in the various other places in which she was active were often linked by strong personal connections and similar political ideas. Intellectual objectives such as total history and the study of the mind were connected with democratic ideals, as well as to a pedagogical programme which, rejecting specialisation, was aimed at the promotion of humanist ideals through the diffusion of a humanistic version of science. By assuming Metzger’s point of view, the discussions and theoretical shifts that took place in these groups will be seen through the eyes of somebody who was relatively marginal and did not have the responsibility or willingness to give the official line on events.

While focused on Metzger, this article is on two levels: that of particular institutions and groups; and that of historiographical ideas. These levels are interdependent. Indeed, one of my main objectives is to show that new ideas generally exclusively attributed to such intellectuals as Lucien Febvre, Lucien Le´ vy-Bruhl and Alexandre Koyre´ were in fact part of a collective effort. In this effort, Metzger played a very important role, which was made possible and at the same time constrained by her particular position in the intellectual world. Ideas and places are interdependent in many ways; ideas were elaborated and discussed within institutions and groups; conversely, the Centre de Synthe`se, its group for history of science, and the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques had been created in order to further ideas about history, science and society. The ‘places’ where Metzger was to be found were: the Centre de Synthe`se, the International Committee for the History of Science at the Centre, the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences and Techniques, and the E´ cole Pratique des Hautes E´ tudes.

For Metzger it was no easy enterprise to access those places; the first major step towards them was to go to the Sorbonne and meet the philosophers there. The connection between them and the members of the other organisations can be seen at a glance in Figure 1.

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Fig. 1. Who was there: Metzger and her interlocutors.

2.

The Places

2.1. Finding a place in the world (of history of science) Metzger’s route to posts of responsibility in academic and cultural institutions was difficult and destined for only partial success. Daughter of a precious stone trader, He´ le`ne Bruhl did receive an education, but not that normally expected of persons pursuing a university career. The route to a chair was normally the lyce´ e as secondary education, the baccalaure´ at, then a licence, which is the first stage of university degrees, the agre´ gation, by which one becomes a civil servant and therefore acquires the right to teach in a public institution, and finally the doctorat d’E´ tat. Metzger followed a parallel and less prestigious curriculum. She gained a brevet supe´ rieur rather than a baccalaure´ at, which was a necessary qualification in order to be admitted to a university course ending in a licence. She nevertheless went into higher education, eventually obtaining a diploˆ me d’e´ tudes supe´ rieures in crystallography, a subject probably chosen with the family trade in mind. Without a licence, though, it was not possible for her to go on to a doctorat d’E´ tat, which was the more prestigious higher degree.

She then developed an interest in history of science, and during the First World War wrote without supervision La gene`se de la science des cristaux (1918), a history of the emergence of crystallography in the eighteenth century. In the war she also lost her husband, the historian Paul Metzger, to whom she had been married only one and a half years. The loss of her husband had not only emotional but also practical consequences. Paul was a lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the

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University of Lyon.1 Over twenty years later, in 1941, another war brought He´ le`ne back to Lyon, where she reminisced about her husband having been a loved professor there, and gloomily reflected that had he not died for France, he would have not been allowed to teach in France.2 But her husband had died, and she, as a young widow, had no reason to live in Lyon, and instead settled in Paris, at 21 rue Pauquet.3 In Paris, she took her manuscript to her professor of crystallography, who simply asked her why she studied things which did not interest anybody. If this was rather harsh, it was not entirely surprising, considering the type of work she had written.

A large part of La gene`se de la science des cristaux is dedicated to types of doctrines that twenty years later Gaston Bachelard was going to name ‘lapsed’. Interested as she was in the different ways of thinking in different times, Metzger did not hide, indeed emphasised, the ideas underlying eighteenth-century crystallography, many of which are totally incompatible with modern science. Her chemistry professor’s reaction to her chosen topic made her realise that she had to look somewhere else in order to find scholars who engaged in the same type of history as that she intended to practise. She later wrote to George Sarton that she understood that ‘if one wanted to do history of science seriously, and find a public of readers, it was necessary to look among philosophers, historians, and even professors of literature’.4 Her approach to history of crystallography, and in particular her conviction that its history was inseparable not only from the other sciences but also from philosophical beliefs and more generally from the ‘history of humanity’, was likely to receive more attention from scholars who supported a general study of science, rather than specialist historians or indeed scientists. These scholars were mainly in the Faculty of Letters, and held philosophy chairs. Metzger then visited Gaston Milhaud, who held the chair of ‘history of philosophy in its relationship with the sciences’. He was enthusiastic about her manuscript, and encouraged her to continue to work on ‘the philosophical history of the sciences’.5 Her history of crystallography earned her a doctorat d’universite´ . This qualification was generally shorter than a doctorat d’E´ tat and was overwhelmingly pursued by foreigners. Unfortunately Milhaud died that very year, 1918, but Metzger was now in a congenial milieu. She attended the lectures of Le´ on Brunschvicg, professor of history of philosophy, and those of Andre´ Lalande, professor of philosophy and author of the 1 Paul Metzger devoted himself to legal history after studying law, just as He´ le`ne dedicated herself to history of chemistry after studying chemistry. Another common feature of their works is the period chosen: his Le conseil supe´ rieur et le grand bailliage de Lyon (Metzger, 1913), published just before the First World War, was focused on the eighteenth century.

2 Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 7/9/41; repr. in Freudenthal (1990a), pp. 263–64.

3 Metzger and George Sarton met for the first time in July 1925 in her apartment on rue Pauquet, when she invited him and his wife and daughter to dinner, while they were in Paris for a short period (Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 17/7/25).

4 Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 20/6/22; repr. in Freudenthal (1990a), pp. 249–50.

5 Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 20/6/22; repr. in Freudenthal (1990a), pp. 249–50.

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classic Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie.6 Her name, and her book, must have started to be known in the circles of history of science, for, from what is very probably the first letter she wrote to George Sarton, it seems that he contacted her asking her to collaborate with Isis, of which she ignored the existence.

Her correspondence with Sarton, as her reviews for Isis, never ceased until she was rounded up by the Germans in 1944 and taken to Auschwitz, from where she never returned.

After Milhaud’s death, Lalande took over as her mentor, and indeed nominated her most philosophical book, Les concepts philosophiques, for the Bourdin prize for philosophy, which she won. This prize greatly pleased Metzger. She announced that she had won it to Sarton, whom she had met in person for the first time only a month earlier, even when the decision was still confidential, and immediately planned to donate 1000 of the 1500 francs prize money to Isis.7 However, this prize could not quite satisfy her desire for recognition, for, although she was very active and eventually obtained positions of responsibility, she always remained marginal. She never had a stable academic job and was not paid for her lectures at the Sorbonne.8 In 1926, the year after having received the Bourdin price, she wrote to Sarton: ‘I shall conquer a real post somewhere. But I am for ever stopped in my efforts’.9 Her quest was no easy enterprise for a number of reasons. Her sex, curriculum of studies and social background worked against her. Women professors were hardly a normal sight: the first woman to obtain a doctorate in France did so in 1914; in 1930, in the whole of France there were only six women holding a university position. At the University of Paris there were only two, both at the Faculty of Science, one of whom was Madame Curie, lecturing on general physics and physics of radioactivity.10 Metzger’s social background also presented an obstacle. In the same letter to Sarton, Metzger reported a revealing event. She had had an exchange with some colleagues of her late husband, who had been an academic historian; they apparently dismissed her work on the basis of her alleged lack of qualification to write in the field of history. She explained to Sarton that she was put in the category of amateurs because she did not hold a university position; they even claimed that Isis had published her works because she had paid for it.11 Her offer to help Isis financially had clearly backfired, and been used in 6

Lalande (1932 [1902–3]).

Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 23/5/23; repr. in Freudenthal (1990a), pp. 251–52.

8 In the report on the activities of the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques, she was thanked for her ‘voluntary collaboration’ (Annales de l’Universite´ de Paris, 11 (1936), p. 341).

9 Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 22/4/26; repr. in Freudenthal (1990a), pp. 254–55.

10 Clark (1937), p. 48. Here is the complete list of women holding a university post in France in 1930: Faculty of Sciences: (1) Mme Curie, professor titulaire de physique ge´ ne´ rale et de la radioactivite´ (Paris); (2) Mme Ramart-Lucas, professeur de chimie organique (Paris); Faculty of Letters: (1) Mlle Villard, professeur de langue anglais et litte´ rature ame´ ricaine (Lyon); (2) Mlle Bianquis, maıˆtre de conference de langue allemande (Dijon); Faculty of Medicine: Mlle Condat, charge´ de enseignement de la pathologie generale (Toulouse); Faculty of Law: Mme Be´ quignon-Lagarde, charge´ du cours de proce´ dure et des voies d’exe´ cution (Rennes) (Charrier, 1931, pp. 407–8).

11 Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 22/4/26; repr. in Freudenthal (1990a), pp. 254–55.

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what seems to have been the defence of an intellectual class against newcomers belonging to the mercantile class, especially Jewish ones, and in this case even female. In the same letter, she reacted against her late husband’s colleagues’ representation of herself as a ‘Carnegie’s daughter’ who ‘bought’ herself an aristocrat—in this case an academic. She was understandably hurt by this representation of her marriage, and protested that she was not at all rich, and only had the income that her father had arranged for her. In her analysis, her father had prevented his ‘socialist, or almost’ daughters from receiving an education that would allow them to have an independent profession, but at the same time had provided them with an income so that they could marry ‘good men of intellectual and moral value’, who however had nothing more than their modest earnings.

Metzger’s father’s hopes for his daughters’ marriage seem to confirm a pattern found among French Jews in that period. While the majority of university lecturers came from families well established in academic careers, and often well rooted at the E´ cole Normale Supe´ rieure, this was not the case for Jews, who were relatively new to the academic world. Indeed, only at the turn of the century did the Jewish bourgeoisie consistently seek university diplomas and careers, often regarded as a way of integrating into French society. Entrance to the E´ cole Normale was in turn the most secure and prestigious way to enter academia.12 The E´ cole Normale Supe´ rieure was dominated by the middle classes; moreover, the children of academics were massively over-represented. To give an idea, between 1927 and 1933, 33.1% of normaliens were children of school and university teachers; in the same period, the latter represented less than 1% of the entire French population.13 By looking at the family background and education of a few persons in Metzger’s intellectual milieu, we see a pattern: Brunschvicg, Le´ vy-Bruhl, Mauss and Adrienne Bruhl—who was Metzger’s half-brother—were from Jewish families, and their fathers’ occupation was commerce; they were new to the academic world. By contrast, Lucien Febvre and Andre´ Lalande came from families already well rooted in academia or civil service at large (Table 1).

Another common trait of many Jewish intellectuals of humble origin was their marriage to wealthier Jewish women. Christophe Charle, who has studied the case of the marriage of E´ mile Durkheim to the wealthy Julie Dreyfus, argues that the class boundaries were weaker among Jews than Catholics. Henri Bergson’s father was a musician of Polish origins and modest means, but Henri married the daughter of an executive of the Rothschild bank, related to Proust’s mother. Le´ on Brunschvicg, son of a humble manufacturer of furnishing trimmings, married the daughter of a wealthy merchant.14 Lucien Le´ vy-Bruhl acquired the second part of his surname with his marriage. It is no coincidence that this is the same as Metzger’s maiden name; Lucien married her aunt. Similarly, Paul Metzger, a historian lectur12

Sirinelli (1994), p. 167.

Sirinelli (1994), p. 169.

14 Charle (1984), p. 48.

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Table 1. Sources: Charle (1986) and Guigue (1935), Annales de l’Universite´ de Paris (1935), Revue de synthe`se (1925).

Brunschvicg Sorbonne, history of modern philosophy Febvre Colle`ge de France Lalande Sorbonne, philosophy

Le´ vy-Bruhl (ne´ Le´ vy) Sorbonne, history of modern philosophy Rey Sorbonne, history and philosophy of science Mauss Colle`ge de France

Adrien Bruhl Dean of the Faculty of Letters, University of Dijon

Father

Religion

ENS

Manufacturer/ salesman of furnishing trimmings (ENS) Professor

Family: Jewish.Himself: rationalist

Admitted Fellow member of CIS; 1888 she attended his lectures at the Sorbonne.

Family: catholic de-christianised.

Himself: atheist (ENS) Professor. Lay. Protestant Stendhal’s leanings. His grand-nephew. wife converted to protestantism.

Sales representative

Jewish

Merchant

‘Criticist’

Merchant

Family: Jewish.

Himself: agnostic; member of the Rationalist Union Family: Jewish

Jeweller

Relation with Metzger

Admitted Fellow member of CIS 1897 and IHST. Admitted Mentor; she attended his 1885 lectures; he promoted her work, prefaced one of her books; fellow member of CIS. Admitted Uncle; he was always 1876 ‘the first reader’ of her work; fellow member of CIS. No Fellow member of CIS; director of IHST where she lectured No Fellow member of CIS; fellow lecturer at IHST

Admitted Brother 1923

ing at the University of Lyon, married He´ le`ne Bruhl, daughter, as we know, of a jeweller. It was becoming acceptable for Jewish men to start breaking into the fortress of the ‘state nobility’, to use Bourdieu’s expression, and to secure a comfortable living through marriage. However, in this scenario, He´ le`ne Metzger was not to be considered a candidate for this enterprise, but rather the well-off wife who could have supported Paul in his academic career, had he not died shortly after their marriage in the First World War. She had not secured cultural capital for herself, and her family background had not been ‘improved’ by a prestigious Grand E´ cole, nor even a doctorat d’E´ tat, whereas her younger half-brother, Adrien Bruhl, attended the E´ cole Normale and eventually became the Dean of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Dijon. She blamed her father, or at least the custom to which he conformed, for having put her in a ‘wanted inferiority’.15 Not everybody succeeded in their pursuit of an academic post, even without the handicaps of sex and curriculum. The most notable example is Henri Berr, the founder of the Journal Revue de synthe`se historique and of the Centre de Synthe`se.

15

Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 22/4/26; repr. in Metzger (1987), pp. 254–55.

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His education, including at the E´ cole Normale and a doctorat d’E´ tat, was intended to procure him a university post, but this never happened. From a Jewish family, like others we have seen, he married a wealthy and well connected woman; this marriage greatly helped his plans to set up his journal, Centre and publishing house.

The Centre de Synthe`se was the first place where He´ le`ne Metzger was given some responsibilities. It seems quite appropriate for Metzger to have joined the Centre, which was an organisation independent of academia and its rules, but which on the other hand enjoyed the support and participation of distinguished intellectuals and politicians. Metzger was accepted there, as she was not socially marginal, and outside state institutions her cultural capital was more acceptable.

The Centre de Synthe`se must also have seemed to her the right place for strictly intellectual reasons; the project of its founder was that of promoting ‘historical synthesis’. Already in her first book, La gene`se de la science des cristaux, Metzger had expressed, if not fully realised, the historiographical goal of linking history of science to a larger history—in her own words, to the ‘history of humanity’. This was also the explicit goal of the Centre, in which a unit for the history of science was established, aimed at giving a much needed space to historians of science.

Despite long struggles, the general history of science was not an established academic discipline, and many works in history of science continued to be written by academics holding philosophy chairs, such as Abel Rey, Le´ on Brunschvicg and Gaston Milhaud. People like Metzger who could not aspire to a chair had only this space, at least for the time being.

2.2. The Centre de Synthe`se, unit for the history of the sciences, Hoˆ tel de Nevers, 12 rue Colbert, Paris Henri Berr was a teacher at Lyce´ e Henri IV in Paris. The Henry IV was a very prestigious lyce´ e and a place where connections could be created: well known philosophers had taught there, including Henri Bergson, Le´ on Brunschvicg, Victor Delbos and E´ mile Chartier, alias Alain. Many of their students attending the year of preparation for the E´ cole Normale Supe´ rieure in the 1920s went on to become prominent figures in different fields, such as Georges Canguilhem and Simon Weil.16 Teaching there was often the first stage of a career which eventually led to the Sorbonne or the Colle`ge de France, as in the case of Bergson, Delbos and Brunschvicg. Berr, however, did not manage to obtain a post in a higher education institution, even though one of his two candidatures (in 1903 and 1911) to the Colle`ge de France was supported by Henri Bergson.17 Despite his failure, Berr had a network of important social connections, due to his years at the E´ cole Normale and to his beau marriage to Cecile Halphen, from a rich family of businessmen and engineers, which afforded Berr a higher social status than that of an ordinary lyce´ e teacher, and a large apartment near the Champs-Elyse´ es where his wife held 16 17

Sirinelli (1994), p. 85.

Gemelli (1987), p. 231.

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a literary salon.18 The Centre could also count on influential members: its founding meeting was organised by the MP Paul Doumer, who was to be elected speaker of the Senate in 1927 and President of the Republic in 1931; it was also attended by the prime minister E´ douard Herriot and the MP Paul Painle´ ve´ .19 Both Herriot and Painle´ ve´ joined the trustee board; Doumer was president of the Centre until 1932, when he was assassinated. Doumer used his influence to support the Centre, for example in order to house it at the Hoˆ tel de Nevers, situated opposite the Bibliothe`que National, offered by the Ministry of Education. Henri Berr was also a personal friend of Abel Rey, founder of the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques.20 Rey actually played a significant role in the Centre, and he directed its section of natural sciences. In 1930, he also joined, together with Lucien Febvre and the physicist Paul Langevin, the editorship of the Revue de synthe`se historique, which Berr had founded in 1900. With the arrival of the new editors, the name of the journal became simply Revue de synthe`se, so as to mark the intention of broadening its scope.

In Berr’s intentions, the ideal aim of the Centre was to promote historical knowledge along the lines of a rather positivistic conception of history. He believed that history was ‘one of the forms of the quest for truth’ rather then ‘a literary genre’,21 and that ‘truth’ and aesthetic and literary considerations were at odds. History was ‘behind the other sciences’ and his objective was to speed up its development. As an exact science, history-writing in his view should exclude intuition, and rather involve a great deal of empirical research. Among the objectives of the Centre was that of creating a centre of documentation. Berr intended to gather and make available all the ‘information’ concerning the theory of history. The unit for ‘historical synthesis’ of the Centre was devoted to this end as well as the creation of a historical dictionary, so that historical terms would be ‘rigorously’ defined.22 The members of the Centre contributed entries, including Metzger, who wrote the entry ‘Alchemy’ and drafted that on the ‘Atom’.23 The Centre’s Unit [section] for history of science was officially inaugurated on 22 January 1930; the Italian e´ migre´ Aldo Mieli, the president, delivered the official speech to an audience of fifteen, including Berr, Metzger and Rey.24 In that first speech, he proposed Metzger as secretary of the Unit. The journal Archeion served as their organ. Mieli, who had founded the journal in Italy with the name of 18

Candar and Pluet (1997), ‘Introduction’.

Fondation ‘Pour la Science’, 1929, ‘Allocution de M. Paul Doumel, Pre´ sident du Conseil d’Administration’.

20 Replying in 1912 to Sarton, who had presumably asked him for advice about his new enterprise, the journal Isis, Berr urged him to contact his ‘friend Abel Rey of the University of Dijon’ (Berr, Letter to Sarton, 4/5/12). Rey was the only name Berr had in mind of somebody who could contribute to Isis.

21 Berr (1911), p. 232.

22 Berr (1925), pp. 10ff.

23 Her entry ‘Alchimie’ was published in Revue de synthe`se (Metzger, 1938c); her entry ‘Atome’ was published posthumously as ‘Atome. Projet d’article pour un Vocabulaire historique’ in the Revue d’histoire des sciences et de leurs applications (Metzger, 1947).

24 Archeion 12 (1930), p. 50.

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Archivio di storia della scienza, had continued editing it in Paris to which he moved in 1927 in order to escape the oppression of the Fascist regime.25 Mieli and Metzger worked side by side for many years at the Centre. In some of Metzger’s letters to Sarton and to Charles and Dorothea Singer, Mieli added his greetings, and Metzger added hers to his letters. However, one has the impression that they were not very close. In official situations, Mieli mentioned Metzger less then one would expect considering the volume of work she did for the Unit. Occasionally, Metzger expressed reservations about Mieli’s organisational ability and academic work. For instance, her private judgement on Mieli’s La science arabe (1938a) was that Mieli had been clever to summarise the topic into a ‘sort of secondary school textbook’, although she did not approve of the lack of connection between scientific thought and ‘thought in general’.26 At any rate, she appeared rather hurt when Mieli, while on a journey in Argentina in 1939, decided not to return to Europe and did not communicate his decision to her, nor reply to her letters, while being in touch with others.27 Most of Metzger’s historiographical essays were written as talks given at the Centre de Synthe`se. The reception of her talks is interesting in that it reveals the extent to which her historiographical ideas were in tune with those of the other members of the Centre. The talks by the historians of science were attended by the members of the Unit itself,28 by Abel Rey—who had the peculiar status of ‘membre e´ tranger’, but who in fact regularly attended the meetings—and generally

by Henri Berr. Berr devoted all his life to ‘historical synthesis’ and could only welcome Metzger’s comprehensive conception of history of science. However, his view of the historical craft did not linger on philosophical questions too long. He was, for instance, rather puzzled by Metzger’s talk on ‘L’a priori dans la doctrine scientifique et l’histoire des sciences’. The concept of a priori is fundamental in Metzger’s historiography, although it is not clearly defined. In her talk, Metzger seems to use the term to label two problems: one is the methodological assumptions of the historian, the other the human cognitive structures. The former issue is less crucial and serves as introduction; she claims that the a priori of the historian comprises first of all the assumption that ‘nothing human is foreign to him’; sec-

25 Aldo Mieli explained his reasons for leaving Italy and his views on the Fascist regime in a long letter to George Sarton, kept at the Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass.

26 Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 5/8/39.

27 Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 26/5/40; repr. in Freudenthal (1990a), p. 262.

28 The members who attended the meetings included Metzger, Mieli, Pierre Brunet, Pierre Ducasse´ , often Rey, Madame Tannery (widow of Paul Tannery) and F. Marotte. The members living overseas (George Sarton and Henry Sigerist in the United States, Charles Singer in Britain, Gino Loria in Italy, Quido Vetter in Czechoslovakia, and others in Germany, Spain and Belgium) could not as a rule attend the meetings, although occasionally some of them did. For instance, Sigerist attended a session in which Metzger gave a paper (on 19 March 1930, Archeion 12 (1930), p. 375) and attended a meeting on 23 June 1937,when he was asked to talk about the history of medicine in the United States and in particular at the Johns Hopkins University, where he was the director of the Institute for the History of Medicine (Archeion 19 (1937), pp. 261–262).

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ondly the assumption that he can and must grasp the most diverse mentalities; finally that it is in his own mind that he has to revive these other mentalities.

In the largest part of her talk, however, Metzger assigned to ‘a priori’ a much larger semantic field. She claimed that the meaning provided by Lalande’s Vocabulaire de la philosophie,29 that is, any item of knowledge not acquired through experience, is more restrictive than her own. Her concept of a priori includes not only the notions ‘preceding experience’ but also the ‘fundamental tendencies that generate those notions’.30 In other words, by a priori she intended to indicate not only, and not especially, ideas such as Descartes’ innate ideas, that do not appear to have been apprehended through experience. Rather, her term ‘mental a priori’ refers in particular to mental categories, or structures of thought. She employed the rather vague expression ‘fundamental tendencies’ perhaps because she wanted to include under the heading ‘mental a priori’ also non-rational and emotional predispositions which impact on the way people reason.

Metzger was certainly aware that her notion of a priori could have been identified with Kantian categories, so she made clear that ‘the a priori is not and cannot be the same in all times and places; . . . there is not only one a priori, but several a prioris, very different from one another and sometimes heterogeneous and incompatible’. This clarification makes it apparent that Metzger’s a priori is very close to Le´ vy-Bruhl’s ‘mentality’. The role of what she named a priori is for her central in the cognitive process: neither the scientists nor the historian can aim at finding a truth independent of their own mentality. In her talk, she dismissed the logical empiricism of the Vienna Circle as tainted by a ‘juvenile exuberance and aggression’. What she did not like in their project was precisely the will to eliminate what she called ‘spontaneous thought’ and ‘a priori’. To this model she counterpoised her own, presented by way of the image by which she concluded her talk: human intelligence, she argued, is like the eye of certain deep water fishes, which is at the same time organ of vision and source of light.31 Henri Berr was the first to intervene in the discussion of Metzger’s paper, and declared that he did so because she had hinted at the ‘friendly discussions’ between him and herself. It is clear that Berr felt uneasy about Metzger’s a priori in whatever form she presented it, for he conceived of science as knowledge ideally unaffected by a particular culture or individual personality. It comes then as no surprise 29

Lalande (1932 [1902–3]). Lalande’s was the standard dictionary of philosophy.

Metzger (1936), p. 33.

31 Metzger (1936), pp. 41–42. Her opinion of the Vienna Circle’s philosophy was not going to change: in 1935, she gave another paper at the Sorbonne as a comment on the ‘First Congress of Scientific Philosophy’ held in Paris that year. She suggested that the idea of a neutral and universal language had come up again and again in philosophy, for example with Condillac, Leibniz, Pascal and Raimondo Lullo, and she did not see any novelty in the Vienna Circle’s project. She added that the members of the Vienna Circle believed themselves to be doing something new just because they were ignoring the history of philosophy and the history of science. Moreover, she disapproved of their separation ‘of thought from the thinker’ (‘Re´ flexion sur le Congre`s international de philosophie scientifique’— Metzger, 1935b, pp. 421–423).

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that the only way in which he could interpret Metzger’s a priori was as prejudice, in the Enlightenment sense of the term. In his remarks on her talk, he invited her to distinguish between the a priori of the historian and the a priori of the scientist.

He identified the former essentially with a lack of rigour, as he argued that historians employ the a priori when they claim that a scientist held a certain idea, without being able to prove their affirmation. In science, Berr continued, the a priori consists in the hypothesis, and conceded to Metzger that in hypotheses there might be some element of imagination. It goes without saying that Berr’s little correction to Metzger’s notion of a priori renders her whole proposal trivial. Indeed she replied very dryly simply by saying that she could not concede that which was incompatible with her own doctrine.32 Metzger’s rather sophisticated notion of a priori in the history of thought has attracted the attention of modern critics: Gad Freudenthal regards it as very close to Gadamer’s notion of ‘prejudice’ (Freudenthal, 1990b). However, in Metzger’s audience at the Centre de Synthe`se, many were faithful to the negative conception of prejudice; on that particular day nobody seemed to want to discuss the issue in her own terms, or probably they did not even understand what she was aiming at.

M. Serrus, attending the talk, intervened to praise her and to agree that prejudice is a necessary element of invention; however, he soon added that prejudice is also the ‘illusion’ that science has the right and duty to correct.33 Metzger did not change her mind about the philosophical method and objectives of history of science; nor did she hide her view from the director of the Centre de Synthe`se. The year after her talk on the a priori, she was there again, giving a controversial talk on the ‘philosophical method in the history of science’. It is clear that this talk was a stage in an ongoing discussion at the Centre that saw Metzger opposed by some fellow members, who certainly included Berr. Indeed, Metzger presented her paper as a defence of a philosophical approach to history of science and as a response to the ‘historians of science’ who opposed any deviation from an empirical and positivistic approach to science. These unidentified historians had evidently attacked her claim that the historian should not limit herself or himself to texts, but should try to capture the mind behind texts, and the system of beliefs which produced them. History, Metzger argued, cannot be reduced to ‘picturesque events’ and ‘descriptions of doctrines’ from which ‘creative thought’ has disappeared. The proper object of the historian of science is, according to Metzger, ‘scientific thought’ when it is still in its ‘emerging state’. By this clarification, she wanted to shift the attention of historians from well formed doctrines as they appear in later codification and textbooks to the mental and cultural mechanisms which 32 Archeion 18 (1936), pp. 75–79. Maxime Laignel-Lavastine expressed the opinion that a psychology or maybe psychoanalysis of the a priori was needed. Gaston Bachelard would in 1938 publish La Formation de l’esprit scientifique. Psychanalyse de la connaissance objective, in which he attempted precisely that.

33 ‘Centre International de Synthe`se, Section d’histoire des sciences, se´ ance du 20 novembre 1935’, Archeion 18 (1936), pp. 75–79.

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produce them. The method which the historian should use involves the effort of ‘making himself contemporary with the scientists about whom he speaks’. Metzger recognised that this is not an easy task, because the historian has her or his own way of thinking. However, Metzger, just as she rejected positivistic history, discarded the other extreme of historical scepticism, according to which history is nothing more than a reflection of the historian’s own mind. She thought that the historian’s reflexivity would allow her or him to break out of the vicious circle denounced by the sceptic. Finally, the goal of the historian of science is described as the following: 1. to improve our knowledge of the human mind; 2. thanks to this very knowledge, to use our intelligence more wisely and less empirically than we have done so far in formulating at random scientific, philosophical and historical theories.34

She concluded her talk by setting as the ‘supreme recompense’ for the historian of science that of furnishing valuable material for epistemology, ‘psychology of the mind’ and philosophy and science. Far from being a peculiar point of view, her conception that the ultimate goal of the historian was to study the mind, and that, conversely, the mind should be studied by observing it in history, was shared by many intellectuals and indeed historians of science; but these were more easily found at the Sorbonne, where the contiguity of philosophy, psychology, ethnology and history of science encouraged approaches like hers. In the same years, Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre,35 founders of the Annales, were realising their project of ‘history of mentalities’. It would have been interesting if Febvre had been present at Metzger’s talks on the ‘mental a priori’ and the philosophical method in the history of science. Unfortunately, Febvre did not entertain many relations with the historians of science of the Centre or indeed with those at the Sorbonne. The only talk of the Unit for history of science he did attend was that of Metzger on ‘Les diffe´ rents aspects de la meˆ me e´ poque d’une civilisation (lettres, sciences, arts) peuvent-ils eˆ tre conside´ re´ s comme autant de projections varie´ s d’un meˆ me e´ tat d’esprit? Ou au contraire leurs modifications diverses ont-elles agi individuellement sur l’e´ volution de cette civilisation en ge´ ne´ ral?’36 Probably, Febvre felt that the problem posed by the talk was not particularly challenging, and wanted rather to concentrate on the business of writing history. Indeed, he intervened to say that for him the question posed was already solved, as his principal effort was that of thinking synchronically.37 In other words, Febvre claimed to have already opted for the first part of the alternative proposed in the title of Metzger’s talk: the difference aspects of a civilisation were for him projections of one particular men34

Metzger (1937), p. 206.

Febvre published in the Revue de synthe`se his first article in 1905, to which another 280 texts, mainly book reviews, followed (Mu¨ ller, 1997, p. 40).

36 Archeion 12 (1930), pp. 375–379.

37 Archeion 12 (1930), p. 379.

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tality. As a consequence, the historian for him should have a ‘synchronic’ approach, that is, he or she should consider different cultural expressions of a certain epoch, rather than following the diachronic evolution of one discipline, idea or institution.

For Febvre, questions such as that of Metzger’s talk were no longer a matter of discussion; those principles had now to be applied to history writing.

2.3. The International Committee for the History of Science, Hoˆ tel de Nevers, 12 rue Colbert, Paris Strictly connected with the Unit for the History of Science of the Centre de Synthe`se, the International Committee for the History of Science also profited from Metzger’s work. The Committee was also a creation of Aldo Mieli, who founded it when he moved to Paris.38 Archeion served as official organ both of the International Committee and of the Unit for the History of Science of the Centre de Synthe`se; Isis as the Committee’s ‘bibliographic organ’. The Committee managed to secure financial backing from a variety of institutions and countries: in 1931 it had received funds from the governments of ‘Germany, Spain, France, Greece and Hungary’;39 in 1935 the ‘scientific institutions of: France, Romania, Switzerland and United States of America’ were added to the above list of funding bodies.40 The first meeting of the Committee was held in Oslo in 1928.

The International Committee was aimed at co-ordinating the activities of historians of science across the world and promoting their discipline. National Committees were supposed to carry out their work in their respective countries; Archeion then published the information about their publications, conferences and teaching. It seems that Mieli was very keen on maintaining an extensive network, but the elections to the membership of the Committee were often very laborious.

Metzger was elected on 2 December 1928. With her usual modesty and perhaps sense of not completely belonging to the official intellectual world, she was very surprised at her own election. She wrote to Sarton that when Mieli told her that she had been nominated, she thought he had made a mistake.41 On the other hand she welcomed her election, because it ‘would have lent her more authority’, while filing documents at the Centre de Synthe`se, a work Berr had recently asked her to attend to: as an elected member of the International Committee, she could not be regarded as a secretary or a low-level librarian. As a consequence, she probably thought that she could make decisions in the organisation of the Archive of the Centre.

38 The Committee (or Academy) was indeed regarded as Mieli’s ‘child’. For instance, Charles Singer wrote to Sarton in 1955 that he had always disliked the conception of an international academy, and that it made sense only while Mieli and his successor Sergescu were alive, but not any longer (Singer, letter to Sarton, 24/3/55). Sarton’s reply was much more moderate; he defended the Academy without praising it (Sarton, letter to Singer, 27/4/55).

39 Archeion, 13 (1931), p. 74.

40 Archeion 17 (1935), p. 227.

41 Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 13/12/28; repr. in Freudenthal (1990a), p. 258. In the same letter, she also thanked Sarton for not [sic] having voted for her, seeing this as a proof of sincerity.

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Metzger also took part in the various ‘commissions’ within the International Committee, including that for the teaching of the history of the sciences.42 This Commission produced a report which was aimed at presenting the state of the teaching of the sciences in all countries, with a drive to completeness which was typical of the Committee and especially of Aldo Mieli. Obviously, the report could not cover all countries, but all the same included information on most European countries, Morocco and the United States.43 Despite her participation in the works of the Commission, in the session dedicated to the teaching of science at the Second International Congress of History of the Sciences (held in London in 1931), Metzger was relegated to reading a message sent by E´ mile Meyerson.44 The London conference was the second of the four international conferences in history of science that the Committee organised: in Paris in 1929, London in 1931, Portugal (Porto, Coimbra, Lisbon) in 1934, Prague in 1937. The extent to which Metzger took part in the organisation of these conferences and more generally in the activities of the Committee is hard to determine, for Mieli in his official addresses as a rule avoided mentioning her altogether, but this is not to be taken as proof that she was little involved. Indeed, in the proceedings of the conference in Portugal, the local organiser and editor of the proceedings, Arlindo Camilo Monteiro, acknowledged Metzger’s aid in the organisation of that conference.45 Her behind-the-scenes diplomacy can also be seen during the controversy around the 1934 congress. The International Committee had originally decided to hold it in Berlin, but in the meantime Hitler had taken power in Germany, and Jewish scholars had started being expelled from universities; rumours of worse abuse also started spreading. The members of the International Committee, many of whom were Jewish or were firmly opposed to the Nazi regime, had to find a way out of the embarrassment. The congress could not be held in Berlin, but how to proceed to cancel it? Metzger discussed the problem with Mieli and corresponded with the former president of the International Committee, Charles Singer, and his wife Dorothea Waley Singer.46 Some of Metzger’s letters were attempts to help the Committee make a unanimous decision about it, as was customary. She wrote one letter to Dorothea Waley Singer in English, while all the others are in French, like those to Sarton. I suspect Metzger chose to write in English because she was expressing opinions about Mieli, and was asking the Singers to convince him not to rush into a decision about the alternative place for a congress; Mieli wanted to go to Spain

42 Cf. minutes of the meetings of this commission in Archeion 14 (1932), pp. 474–478. Metzger was also a member of the ‘commission for chronological tables’ (cf. Archeion 14 (1932), p. 473).

43 The report was published in Archeion 13 (1931), pp. 567–490; 14 (1932), pp. 88–110 and 260– 288; 15 (1933), pp. 81–90 and 486–490.

44 Archeion 14 (1932), p. 106.

45 IIIe Congre`s International d’Histoire des Sciences tenu a Portugal du 30 Septembre au 6 Octobre 1934: Actes, Confe´ rences et Communications, p. xi.

46 Charles Singer (1876–1960) had been President until 1931, so he was president when the decision to hold the conference in Berlin had been made.

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only because, according to Metzger, ‘Spain is very sunny and . . . fascism has been destroyed two years ago’.47 Metzger’s role as mediator became more pronounced as a crisis within the Committee loomed. Not to create diplomatic problems, Mieli had proposed to the German organisers that they send him a letter declaring that, due to financial problems, they were forced to cancel the Berlin conference. Paul Diepgen,48 responsible for the organisation of the conference, after a great deal of pressure from the Parisian headquarters of the Committee, sent a document declaring that the conference was cancelled, but that it was hoped to organise another one in 1935 or 1936. This was good enough for Mieli, but not for Singer, who at a certain point even sent a telegram declaring his resignation from the Committee.49 He also sent to the Committee a declaration of protest against ‘events in Germany’, signed by a number of distinguished scholars, including the director of the British Museum, the president of the British Academy and the president of the Royal Society.50 For Singer, the Committee must not plan, or be seen to plan, a conference in Nazi Germany.

Metzger wrote several letters to the Singers saying that she would have never gone to Berlin, but that they should compromise on the language of the declaration by the German organisers. At the same time, she reported to them that she had held long conversations with Mieli, and had convinced him to change the sentence about a future conference in Berlin. Without eliminating this sentence about the Committee’s hopes of organising a conference in Berlin in 1935 or in 1936, Mieli had been persuaded to add the phrase ‘if the circumstances will allow it’.51 Apparently, this change made an agreement between Mieli and Singer possible. Unfortunately the postal service was not as fast as one would have wished, so Singer’s letter in which he agreed on the changed declaration arrived too late to be taken into account in a crucial meeting of the Council of the International Committee, during which Mieli’s and Singer’s separate orders of the day were voted. Everybody supported Mieli’s order of the day, except Metzger, who abstained.52 In order to convinced Singer to be more accommodating, Diepgen wrote to him directly. His letter, read with hindsight, is rather eerie: he assured Singer that the rumours about atrocities against non-Aryans were not true, and that he had had the direct word of ‘celebrated leaders of the government’. In the same letter, though, he asked Singer to help him find a scholarship in Britain for his Jewish assistant Dr. Edelstein.53 In the first conference held in Paris in 1931, Metzger chose to read a paper on ‘La philosophie d’Emile Meyerson’.54 It seems peculiar that she elected to talk 47

Letter of Metzger to Dorothea Waley Singer, 4/6/33.

Paul Diepgen (1878–1966) was the director of the Institut fu¨ r Geschichte der Medizin und Naturwissenschaft, Berlin.

49 A copy of the telegram is in the Singer papers (see References, ‘Archives’).

50 Enclosed in a letter to Metzger and a letter to Mieli dated 6/6/33.

51 Metzger, Letter to the Singers, 15/6/33.

52 Mieli, Letter to Singer, undated.

53 Diepgen, Letter to Singer, 27/5/33.

54 Metzger (1929).

48

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about this philosopher instead of presenting a paper on her original research, as for instance she did in Portugal. It is possible that she felt that she had to publicly make clear her intellectual relationship with him. Her monograph Newton, Stahl, Boerhaave et la doctrine chimique (1974 [1930]) was dedicated to him, but her private correspondence with Sarton suggests that she had done so more out of good manners, or to please the well known philosopher, than because she really wished to do so. What she resented most was his patronising attitude towards her, as is apparent from her lines in a letter to Sarton: I have seen once or twice Mr. Meyerson, who made a show of ignoring my little book 55 and of being very friendly; he absolutely wants me to compile an index for his next work nearly on the same topic; I am looking for a way of refusing politely and without hurting him. I greatly admire his effort, if he wishes so, I can declare myself his pupil or his disciple (although everything I have published has been written outside his influence), but I refuse to be the slave of [even] the greatest philosopher, for nature endowed me with a brain.56

The irritation Metzger shows here was not a passing one: two years earlier, in another letter, she reported to Sarton that Meyerson had told her that a chapter of her new book on Stahl was her best because he had supervised it closely; and she placed an ironic exclamation point at the and of the sentence.

In the light of these private communications to Sarton, the opening of her talk sounds rather militant: It is my pleasure today . . . to make a personal homage to Mr. Meyerson, who took a great interest in my work on history of chemistry . . . ; unfortunately, I cannot say that he was my teacher, because I did not know him personally [and] I studied his books after doing a great deal of work and publishing two volumes; I cannot declare myself his disciple, because the problems in which I am most interested are not at all those that his epistemological work has aimed to clarify.57

The problem, however, was not just that her historical ‘interests’ were different from Meyerson’s epistemological ones. Metzger had her own epistemological convictions and these happened not to coincide with Meyerson’s. Meyerson had dedicated his works to demonstrating that there is no difference in ways of thinking across times and cultures. The ‘primitive’ ways of thinking described by Le´ vyBruhl Meyerson found to be still present in modern thinking. However, unlike Metzger, he did not regard them as free and undisciplined ways; rather he claimed that the mechanisms of thought described by Le´ vy-Bruhl for primitives were identical to those of scientists. Where Metzger saw a mentality based on the assumption of mystical correspondence between things, as in Renaissance medicine, Meyerson saw a way of thinking which was in all respects the same as that of the scientist who classifies, connects and discovers, say, chemical reactions, the only difference 55

She refers to her Les concepts philosophiques (Metzger, 1926).

Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 14/4/27: repr. in Freudenthal (1990a), p. 255.

57 Metzger (1929), p. xxxii; repr. in Metzger (1987).

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being that the Renaissance medics did not make the right connections. Metzger’s efforts to overcome anachronism and to capture the structures of thought that led past authors to make certain connections must have appeared a waste of time to Meyerson. Other historians and philosophers of science were interested in the changes that they believed occurred in the mode of thinking through time; they were generally based at the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques of the Sorbonne.

2.4. The Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques, 13 rue de Four, Paris Metzger’s association with the Sorbonne philosophers made her ‘career’ as historian of science possible, for in the first decades of the twentieth century the Sorbonne philosophers were the motor of the establishment of history of science as a discipline in French academia. Indeed in 1932, Abel Rey, professor of history and philosophy of science at the Sorbonne and author of major works on ancient science, created the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques.58 Metzger was associated with the Institute, where she lectured on history of chemistry and historiographical methods, and also had responsibility for co-ordination and direction of studies.59 There is little doubt that she shared the Institute’s approach to history of science. In particular two programmatic ideals were at the core of the Institute’s and Metzger’s historiography: the ideal of total history, or historical synthesis, and the conviction that the object of history of science is the history of scientific thought. The latter ideal was explicitly stated by Abel Rey: . . . the history of the sciences is above all the history of their philosophical spirit, of the representation of the universe which men created for themselves every time they tried to make it precise and to justify it, [and] to push their proofs and justifications as far as they could.60

The combination of history and philosophy was common and practised in various ways. First of all, history of philosophy was the second most important branch of philosophy at the Sorbonne after psychology, as far as numbers of students and doctoral theses are concerned. History of philosophy could be seen as a repository of examples of the mind’s capabilities and limits and also as the evolution of these. For some philosophers, history of philosophy was the object of study of epistemologists and philosophers of mind. Others, like Brunschvicg, Rey and Metzger, believed that history of science was the discipline that best allowed one to observe the mind at work. Already in Les concepts scientifiques Metzger had grappled with the problem of how the mind divides objects and ideas into classes.

In this book, she aimed to show the cognitive mechanisms and the world-views

58 For a brief history of the Institute and of the previous chairs of history of science in Paris, see Chimisso (2001), Ch. 5.

59 Annales de l’Universite´ de Paris, 8 (1933), pp. 224–25.

60 Rey (1934), p. xvii.

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of past ‘scientists’.61 She organised her matter according to the various manners of organising data in the history of thought. The main three types she found are analogy, permanence of substances, and evolution, in turn subdivided in further categories. ‘Active analogy’, the action of similar on similar, was the type on which she reflected most, because it was the type she found most frequently in her seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources. She regarded this type of analogy as the fundamental way in which ‘expansive thought’ makes sense of the different phenomena and their relationships. ‘Expansive thought’ is Metzger’s coinage: it indicates the thought in its spontaneous and creative activity, not yet disciplined by reflection and formal logic. She often identified her ‘active analogy’ with Le´ vyBruhl’s ‘law of participation’, and in general referred to the work of her uncle to explain the mechanisms of the mind.

A historian of philosophy at the Sorbonne until his retirement in 1926, Lucien Le´ vy-Bruhl shared the opinion with many of his colleagues that cognitive structures are not invariable and universal; and he set out to study them in an original way.

Le´ vy-Bruhl’s move was to substitute space for time: rather than examining old texts, he reflected on the type of reasoning of contemporary Melanesians and Africans. He came up with the theory of ‘primitive mentality’. He believed that those peoples displayed a way of reasoning which was radically different from that of ‘civilised’ peoples. In particular, the golden rules of Western logic, such as the law of non-contradiction, were not respected. Le´ vy-Bruhl made the term ‘mentality’ a hit, and very soon everybody was using it, for, as Metzger noticed: [Le´ vy-Bruhl’s doctrine] has immediately gone beyond the small circle of the specialists which it seemed to address: it has been read, discussed, commented on, employed, not only by ethnologists, travellers and colonial administrators; but also by philosophers, psychiatrists, psychologists, pedagogues, sociologists and historians.62

The link of some philosophers and historians of science with their colleague Le´ vyBruhl was sometimes extremely strong, such as in the case of Brunschvicg, whom Metzger often quoted. Brunschvicg succeeded Le´ vy-Bruhl in his chair of history of philosophy, and explicitly acknowledged that he relied on Le´ vy-Bruhl’s work in his own investigation of history of mathematics.

The Institute was regarded as the place in which studies of past scientific thought, or indeed ‘mentality’, were pursued. For instance, in a discussion of Metzger’s ‘L’historien des sciences, doit-il se faire le contemporain des savants donc il expose les the´ ories?’ at the Centre de Synthe`se, which took place in 1932, Henri Berr argued that the progress of historical sensibility allows us better to grasp ancient thought, including ‘savage thought’. In expressing the difficulty of doing the same for old science, he said that Abel Rey hoped that ‘his’ Institut [d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques] would ‘give services in that direction’.63 The Institute 61

She employed the word ‘savant’, less tainted by anachronism than the English ‘scientist’.

Metzger (1930b), p. 18.

63 Archeion 15 (1933), p. 156.

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shared with the Centre de Synthe`se the ideal of a comprehensive historical approach; indeed it was aimed at promoting a general history of science as opposed to the histories of specific sciences taught in the science faculties. The syllabus of the Institute reflected this ideal: the period covered spanned from antiquity to the twentieth century; the range of discipline comprised physics as well as medicine, technology as well as pharmacy. Rey and Metzger were not the only ones to belong both to the Institute and to the Centre de Synthe`se, several others did so too (see Fig. 1), including Maxime Laignel-Lavastine, professor of history of medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, and a very active member of the Unit for History of Science and the International Committee.

Metzger actively promoted the ideal of total history, in her historiographical work as well as in the lectures at the Institute, three of which dealt with the relationships of chemical literature and general literature in France. She introduced her 1935 course by stating five fundamental points: that chemistry did not develop independently of general history; that chemistry was not an isolated science; that chemistry was not independent of philosophical currents and revolutions; and finally that chemical literature had strong links with general literature. To support the last point, she cited the change in language between sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury chemists: the emergence of Cartesianism, she claimed, brought with it a desire for clarity which made allegories disappear, sentences shorter and the influence of ‘college Latin’ on syntax less strong.64 Metzger concluded the preliminary remarks of her lectures on the relationship between chemical literature and general literature delivered at the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques with the following words: . . . no point of human history is irrelevant for the history of the sciences; social and political history, history of philosophy, history of literature including history of theatre . . . history of industry and trade, to which could be also added history of art and history of occultism, are [all] useful to the researcher who proposes to study the chemists’ writings.65

She by no means expressed this view only to conform to the ideals of the Institute.

All her theoretical reflections confirm that total history was one of her strongest historiographical convictions. In fact, a similar statement to that above is to be found in the conclusion of her first book: We have now established that the history of the science of crystals, like all history of science, is connected in its broad lines to the general history of humanity; that only the theories and works that develop as a whole along the route the advancement of society pushes them achieve social success; that on the other hand the opinions and methods that are opposed to or on the fringe of the mainstream thought, are permanently or temporarily condemned to be forgotten.66

64

Metzger (1935a), pp. 162–63.

Metzger (1935a), pp. 163–64.

66 Metzger (1918), p. 224.

65

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Metzger was to realise that her power within the institution was very limited, and she was very disappointed when the young Pierre Ducasse´ was appointed secretary of the Institute in 1937, for, as she wrote to Sarton, the post had been promised to her.67 This happened at a time when Metzger probably felt that she had managed to establish herself, as to her now long-term collaboration with the Institute she had added further important teaching experience, at the E´ cole Pratique des Hautes E´ tudes.

2.5. The E´ cole Pratique des Hautes E´ tudes, Section des sciences re´ ligieuses On the 21 November 1934, Metzger proposed the election of a new member of the Centre de Synthe`se: Alexandre Koyre´ .68 She was interested in Koyre´ ’s historical approach, one that she must have found similar in many ways to her own. She welcomed the interpretation of the scientific revolution and Galileo that Koyre´ was developing. When he presented it to the Centre, she intervened to stress the similarity of his view with those she had expressed in her talk on the a priori, while Mieli sat in silence, reserving his quite harsh criticism of the ‘newcomer’ for the pages of Archeion.69 Metzger had already begun to form an idea of Koyre´ ’s value, having started attending his lectures on Galileo at the E´ cole Pratique des Hautes E´ tudes in 1934; she continued until 1939, first as a ‘regular auditor’ and then as ‘graduate student’ together with Alexandre Koje`ve; she also took ‘active part’ in Koyre´ ’s course titled ‘Galilean studies’.70 In 1937–38, Koyre´ spent most of the academic year at the University of Cairo, and arranged to be substituted in his lectures by Metzger and Koje`ve.

The EPHE was a sui generis institution, which allowed greater freedom of teaching, recruiting lecturers and enrolling students than any other French higher education institution, with the exception of the Colle`ge de France. The only requirement for a student to attend was to enroll; no fees were payable, no academic qualifications required, and there was no age limit. There were no examinations; to obtain a diploma, after two or three years of attendance, the student would write a thesis of about 150–200 pages. If this was considered good, a diploma was granted and the work published, possibly in the series ‘Bibliothe`que de l’E´ cole des Hautes E´ tudes’ if it was very good. This diploma, however, had no legal value apart from allowing the holder to pursue a higher degree. For example, someone with neither degree nor baccalaure´ at could be admitted to a doctorate if he or she held a EPHE diploma. In an article targeted at German readers, Koyre´ explains that students at the EPHE were generally either pursuing a doctorate or were persons without university education who studied for personal enjoyment. The lecturers were appointed purely on academic value, and they were not required to 67

Metzger, Letter to Sarton, 1/11/37.

Archeion 17 (1935), p. 81.

69 Archeion 18 (1936), pp. 283 ff., se´ ance du 22 janvier 1936; Mieli (1938b), p. 249 (n. 3); 281 (n. 4).

70 Koyre´ (1986), pp. 43ff.

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hold any particular degree or title. Any lecturer was completely independent of the others; as a result, each course stood on its own, without planned connections with the others.71 This greater flexibility about appointments and curricula must have attracted Metzger, not only because she was interested in a discipline—history of science— which was only in those years conquering an independent space in higher education, but also because her academic qualifications did not correspond to those usually held by university lecturers. The department for which she worked was that of ‘Religious Sciences’, which had been created in 1886, the year after the ‘denationalisation’ of the faculties of theology. This department was intended for studying religion as a cultural, historical and ethnological phenomenon. Koyre´ held his chair of ‘history of Catholicism’ there from 1931 to 1945; Marcel Mauss that of ‘religions and societies in South America’ from 1901 to 1941, when Claude Le´ vi-Strauss succeeded him. Lucien Febvre lectured in the same department from 1943 to 1948 on ‘history and sociology of Protestantism’.

Despite the lay character of this approach to religion, Metzger found it amusing when she was awarded a diploma on the basis of her book which resulted from her course: ‘here I am a theologian!’ she joked in a letter to George Sarton. Her work was published in three parts in Actualite´ s scientifiques et industrielles. Philosophie et Histoire de la pense´ e scientifique, with the title Attraction universelle et religion naturelle chez quelques commentateurs anglais de Newton (1938a). Religion was, as it should be, very central in her course. Her scope was to analyse how Newtonianism made possible a reconciliation of a mechanistic and a religious view of the world. For this reason, advocates of natural religion had adopted Newton’s doctrine and world-view.72 Her general thesis is that at the moment of the publication of Newton’s Principia, Cartesianism was very widespread in Great Britain, and it had become increasingly materialist; indeed natural philosophy based on Cartesianism no longer needed God as universal explanation. Newton, she explains, while accepting Boyle’s corpuscular philosophy, superimposed on it a force that bodies exert on one another without contact. He did not deduce this force from a priori principles, but through the success of calculation based on the assumption of the existence of this force. In this way, God, through universal attraction, seems to re-enter the functioning of nature. Metzger held that Newton based his achievements not only ‘on Kepler’s astronomy’ and ‘on Hooke’s coherent hypotheses’, but also ‘on Henry More’s metaphysics, on the neoplatonic mystics’ beliefs [and] on the astrologers’ dreams’.73 Metzger’s interpretation of the elaboration of the theory of universal attraction

Koyre´ , ‘L’E´ cole Pratique des Hautes E´ tudes’, in Koyre´ (1986), pp. 6–17.

Metzger examines the work of Newton himself, Richard Bentley (1662–1742), William Whiston (1667–1752), John Toland (1670–1722), Samuel Clark (1675–1729), George Cheney (1671–1743), William Derham (1675–1735), Andrew Baxter (1686–1740) and Joseph Priestley (1733–1804).

73 Metzger (1938a), p. 8.

71 72

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supports her conviction that ‘spontaneous’ thought is an extremely important part of science. She claims that the theory of universal attraction is ‘derived from doctrines as old as humankind’. The type of reasoning behind the elaboration of this force is for her the same as that observed by Le´ vy-Bruhl in ‘primitive’ societies, and can be also found in the Renaissance therapeutics, which admitted the action of similar on similar; it is finally not unlike the neoplatonic doctrines that assumed that aqua regia had a ‘friendship’ with gold. For Metzger the notion of attraction of one thing towards another is instinctive in human beings; what was special in Newton’s move was to transfer this notion from the realm of ‘spontaneous thought’ into the rational Cartesian world which had not seemed apt to receive it. Newton ‘chained’ this spontaneous and flexible notion in a series of rigorous calculations.74 For Metzger the universal attraction is simply another instance of what she called ‘active analogy’. This notion was considered irrational by Descartes, but thanks to Newton it re-entered natural philosophy; by giving back to the world a non-mechanic force which governed its movement and very existence, Newtonianism made it possible to reintroduce God into a mechanistic world. Metzger argues that, although the first edition of the Principia did not contain references to religious thought, Newton was quite happy when Bentley employed his philosophy in that direction, and was opposed to any completely mechanistic explanation of the universe.75 Since the unit of the EPHE in which she lectured was that of religious studies, there is no doubt that Metzger’s choice of exploring relationships between scientific and religious thought was to a certain extent a consequence of the nature of that institution. Further, she was replacing Koyre´ , who was then moving from the study of religious thought to that of scientific thought. In her lectures at the E´ cole she expressed her belief in the fundamental unity of human thought, which showed in the shared world-view of scientific and religious thinking. This thesis has become famous in the work of Koyre´ himself. However, obviously Metzger did not ‘follow’ Koyre´ .76 She had already defended and reflected on these issues well before the young Koyre´ had made himself known in Parisian circles. Moreover, the thesis of the unity of human thought, and its consequence of regarding science as inseparable from other cultural production, was of course at the core of the programme of the IHST and of the work of many members of the CIS. Metzger’s and Koyre´ ’s respective ways of seeing the ‘unity of thought’ of a certain period are not exactly the same. Metzger employed more decisively concepts of the ethnology of the time, namely Le´ vy-Bruhl’s, than Koyre´ did. She located the sources of the unity of human thought in ‘spontaneous thought’ shared 74

Metzger (1938a), p. 8.

Metzger (1938a), pp. 59–60.

Koyre´ was three years her junior, but an even wider gap shows in other dates: Metzger published her doctoral thesis ten years earlier than he did. Moreover, Koyre´ ’s interest in history of science developed in the 1930s; the first part of his Galilean Studies was published in 1939; and his other works in history of science after the war, and after Metzger’s death.

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by all individuals, including the so-called primitive. Indeed, according to her, the constant features of human thinking are those generally considered unscientific and contrary to modern logic. For Metzger, the source of unity is rooted deep in our minds and it is somewhat resistant to education. However, Metzger also believed in a less profound unity of human thought, which can be observed in one particular age as opposed to another. Different periods for her share similar world-views and metaphysical assumptions that cut across different disciplines. The first, and more general, kind of unity identified by Metzger does not correspond to Koyre´ ’s, who claims that unity can be observed in the ‘higher’ spheres of thought; philosophy, religion and science were for him expressions of the same conceptual structures; but the same could not be said or proved for what Metzger called ‘spontaneous thought’. The second type of unity identified by Metzger, that which varies according to different periods, is more similar to what Koyre´ advocated, as it defines a particular time and cultural space. However, Metzger, even though she always analysed high culture, never claimed that the unity of thought can only, or especially, be found at this level. Indeed, her defence of total history was a consequence of her belief that in order to grasp past mentalities, the historian should examine all cultural, social and economic aspects of a civilisation. She explained the alchemists’ connections between events and their research programmes in terms of their mentality and conception of the world, but by no means suggested that they themselves created that mentality. Koyre´ ’s view was rather more top-down.

A good example is his account of the substitution of the conception of a closed world with that of an infinite universe that took place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He described this cultural event, alias the scientific revolution, as a chain of conceptual changes introduced by such famous thinkers as Giordano Bruno and Galileo. He also excluded social explanations, and considered the study of the ‘social context’ ultimately irrelevant to the real issues of scientific and philosophical change.77 Koyre´ studied scientific heroes, Copernicus, Galileo and Newton,78 and the most prestigious of sciences; it would have been much more difficult for Metzger to suggest that the doctrines of her alchemists, or even chemists, had brought about a shift in the mentality of an epoch, to the point of having shaped the modern image of the universe. Metzger’s La gene`se de la science des cristaux and Les doctrines chimiques en France du debut du XVIIe a` la fin du XVIIIe sie`cle are ‘choral’ books, in which many authors, more or less famous are presented. In 77 ‘It . . . seems to me vain to attempt to deduce the existence of Greek science from the social structure of the city state, or even from the agora. Athens does not explain Eudoxus, or Plato, any more than Syracuse explains Archimedes; or Florence, Galileo. I even believed, indeed, that the same is true for modern times, and even of the present century despite the so much closer co-operation between pure and applied science . . . The social structure of England in the seventeenth century cannot explain Newton, any more than the Russia of Nicholas I can throw light on the work of Lobachevsky, or the Germany of Wilhelm II enable us to understand Einstein. To look for explanations along these lines is an entirely futile enterprise, as futile as trying to predict the future evolution of science or of the sciences as a functions of the structure of their social contexts’ (Koyre´ , 1963, pp. 855–56).

78 Cf. Koyre´ (1939, 1958, 1965).

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Newton, Stahl, Boerhaave et la doctrine chimique, which is the sequel to Les doctrines chimiques, Metzger aimed at establishing the nature and extent of the influence of these three ‘foreign savants’ on chemical theory.79 She did not analyse Newton’s theories in detail, but rather their reception by many chemists. She did examine Stahl’s and Boerhaave’s texts rather more closely, offering a commentary, because she thought that they were less known and that it would have been more difficult to comment on their influence without offering a study of them.

3. Metzger on History and Mentalities In her lectures and talks, as well as in her books on history of chemistry, Metzger aimed to show the homogeneity of the way of thinking of a historical period. She claimed that the objective of the historian was that of knowing the human mind; this is to a certain extent reflected in her historical work. At the beginning of Les doctrines chimiques, Metzger claims that the analysis of texts that ‘present themselves to the historian as isolated’ would reveal their profound common features, and this ‘allows one to identify the intellectual activity of a historical period’.80 Her conception of ‘intellectual activity’ is close to the concept of mentality and its variations in historical schools. Indeed, some of her questions did not seem so far away from those which the founders of the Annales school were considering in roughly the same period. For instance, one of her fundamental questions is why the ‘philosophers of metals’ insisted on looking for a solution to the problem of transmutation of metals, despite the regular and total failures of their experiments.81 In fact, they never discussed the special significance of the analogies within the ‘natural class’ of metals; their problem was rather to find the real cause of these analogies. Metzger’s question is similar to that of Marc Bloch in Les rois thaumaturges [The Royal Touch]:82 how is it possible that the people of France and England kept believing for centuries in the therapeutic virtues of the Royal touch?83 The type of answer Metzger proposed is also in the same order, for she concludes that the attitude of the philosophers of metals or alchemists—which appears to the modern reader to be an incomprehensible impermeability to the teaching of experience—was a consequence of their world-view. She argues that the philosophers of metals developed their discipline within an image of the world which was dominated by correspondences and influences of one thing on the other. The idea of astral influences on chemical ‘transformations’ was derived from a very

79

Metzger (1974 [1930]), ‘Introduction’.

Metzger (1969 [1923]), p. 26.

81 Metzger (1969 [1923]), Ch. 2.

82 Bloch (1924).

83 In France this practice is documented from the beginning of the twelfth century, and was interrupted only by the revolution; in England it is documented from the end of the twelfth century and ended with the revolution of 1688, for William of Orange, raised in the Calvinist faith, was the first king to refuse to perform the rite of the ‘Royal touch’ (Bloch, 1924).

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long and venerable tradition. The study of the stars, Metzger argues, was for a long time the only reliable ‘science’, on which the study of the sub-lunar world was modelled. Astrology was strongly connected with astronomy and was employed in the explanation of natural phenomena in term of influences. The seventeenth-century philosophers of metals no longer followed dogmatically the Paracelsian doctrine of correspondence between each planet and a ‘body’ (such as an organ) on earth, because astronomy seemed at that time open to revision: not even the number of planets being any longer certain. However, the alchemists’ discipline was based on celestial influences: the luminous, calorific effluxes were for them responsible for the formation of substances on earth, above all metals. Moreover, their way of reasoning was based on analogy; hence the widespread view that, for instance, lead is to gold what a green fruit is to a ripe fruit, or an infant to a man.84 The problem was for them one of identifying which correspondences were to be established, rather than their existence. The idea of the perfection of gold was attacked by Descartes, and became unintelligible in the eighteenth century, but before that it was a perfectly good assumption, given the underlying conception of the world.85 Another analogy between Metzger and the Annales historians appears here: just as Febvre in Le proble`me de l’incroyance au XVIe sie`cle, la religion de Rabelais (1942) aimed to demonstrate the impossibility for Rabelais, as for any other fifteenth-century person, of conceiving the world without God, so Metzger argued that the alchemists could not think of a natural world in which all things were not in a relation of correspondence and mutual influence.

Metzger aimed at solving these problems of scientific mentality by focusing on a circumscribed subject-matter. Unlike most of her fellow historians of science at the IHST and Centre de Synthe`se, she confined herself to a relatively short period and to chemistry and related disciplines. Metzger’s historical books, La gene`se de la science des cristaux, Les doctrines chimiques en France du de´ but du XVIIe a` la fin du XVIIIe sie`cle and Newton, Stahl, Boerhaave et la doctrine chimique cover the period between the seventeenth and the eighteenth century, and focus on France and what she regarded as the major ‘influences’ on French chemistry, hence her inclusion of Newton and other foreigner philosophers. Of her works that directly resulted from her teaching, La philosophie de la matie`re chez Lavoisier (1935a) stays within her specialty, while Attraction universelle et religion naturelle chez quelques commentateurs anglais de Newton shifts place but not period. The only book of hers which covers a long period is La chimie (1930a), a popular history of chemistry from the Renaissance to 1870 that she wrote for the series Histoire du monde of the publisher Blanchard.86 La chimie is a short book, the main text being only 150 pages long, whereas Les doctrines chimiques en France du de´ but du XVIIe a` la fin du XVIIIe sie`cle is 496 pages long. A very long list of reasons 84

Metzger (1969 [1923]), p. 108.

Metzger (1969 [1923]), pp. 139–140.

86 Her volume constitutes part 4 of tome 13, which is titled La civilisation europe´ enne moderne.

85

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for the narrow focus of most of her writings could be provided; some of which are worth investigating. One is her precise interest in the specific and implicit metaphysical assumptions of the thought of a period, which informed history of chemistry as any other cultural expression. A comparison with Abel Rey is revealing of Metzger’s position.

Rey and Metzger had an objective in common, which was that of showing the ‘mentality’ behind science. The former also wanted to show the ‘evolution’ of ‘intellectual civilisation’, whereas Metzger focused on one particular period. One of the reasons for this difference is a slightly different view of a fundamental theoretical issue for these historians of science: that of mentality, as formulated by Le´ vy-Bruhl. Metzger mitigated the discontinuity Le´ vy-Bruhl saw between ‘primitive’ and modern people, as she recognised traces of primitive mentality in all human beings in all times. However, she still saw sharp discontinuities between ‘mentalities’ in different periods. Her theoretical reflections often insist on the problem of how to understand past texts, how to make ourselves a ‘contemporary of the author’ under study. Rey’s references to Le´ vy-Bruhl are also frequent and crucial.87 He was by no means the only historian to approach ancient science and philosophy in terms of primitive mentality. For instance, Le´ on Brunschvicg dedicated Chapter One of Les e´ tapes de la philosophie mathe´ matique (1912) to ethnographical studies of numerical operation in ‘primitive’ societies, with particular reference to the part of Le´ vy-Bruhl’s Fonctions mentales dans les socie´ te´ s infe´ rieures devoted to ‘pre-logical mentality in its relationship with numeration’.88 Rey accepted the thesis of pre-logical thought and held that the law of participation had been well described by Le´ vy-Bruhl, but he favoured the thesis of a fundamental stability of the structures of the human mind. He indeed accepted the ‘primitive’ ways of thinking that Le´ vy-Bruhl described, but found them to be constant in the history of humanity. So far, Rey’s view was not far from Metzger’s, but while Metzger also emphasised the importance of changes in ways of thinking despite those constant structures, Rey favoured an ‘evolutionary’ model. To support his model of development of history of scientific thought, he referred to the French sociological school, namely Durkheim and Mauss. Marcel Mauss had engaged with his colleague Le´ vy-Bruhl (Mauss co-founded the Institute of Ethnology with him) on the issue of mentalities, and defended, against him, the universality of the human mind. Where Le´ vy-Bruhl saw different and independent ways of thinking, Mauss saw an evolution of the human mind along a universal path: the so-called primitive, for him, displayed not an alternative way of thinking to that of modern people, but a previous stage of a development modern people had also gone through.89 Rey’s Science dans l’antiquite´ , in five volumes (part of the series ‘L’e´ volution de 87

Cf. Rey (1930), pp. 34ff, 40–41, 54–66, 440, n. 3, 441–2; 456–68.

Brunschvicg (1912), Ch. 1; Le´ vy-Bruhl (1910).

89 For an analysis of the debate around Le´ vy-Bruhl’s La mentalite´ primitive (Le´ vy-Bruhl, 1922) at the time of its publication, see Chimisso (2000).

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l’humanite´ ; synthesis collective’, directed by Henri Berr), was aimed at tracing the ‘growth of the human mind’, as Berr put it in the preface to the first volume.90 Metzger argued that the conceptual structures displayed by different authors in different periods were sharply different. Consistently, her historical works were focused on a particular period and were not aimed at showing the ‘evolution’ of thought. She was more interested in pinpointing the characteristics of a certain period by ‘making herself contemporary’ with the authors she studied, at least in her intentions. Obviously, her choice of confining herself to a certain period of history of chemistry cannot simply be explained as a consequence of her historiographical convictions. A simple matter of preference cannot necessarily be dismissed, but there are also other considerations. Metzger’s relatively marginal position worked in two opposed directions. On the one hand, not to hold a post in a university and to have an independent income must have lent her more freedom for writing books. On the other hand, the sense of not being fully part of the academic community made her humble in many ways. She might have chosen to work on a restricted field so as to be able to have an exceptionally profound knowledge of it, also helped by her background in chemistry. In her books she occasionally avoided developing a question by saying that it was outside her competence.

Although this is clearly a rhetorical device, it is still interesting that she decided to employ it.

Her position in the intellectual world and her gender made her a perpetual junior member in the groups she frequented. We have already seen Meyerson’s patronising attitude towards her. The tone of the correspondence with Sarton reveals an unequal situation: she always seems to accept his suggestions, to be running errands for him at the Bibliothe`que National, but never herself asks for comments or favours. She did not have authority attached to her status or person, although she was certainly the most expert scholar in her field among her fellow French historians of science. This situation is displayed in the style of her books. The precision and number of her footnotes stand in stark contrast with those of the majority of her colleagues. The focus of Metzger’s books is narrow, the detail great. In her books, there is an abundance of long quotations, made to illustrate her point, or presented to be explained and commented on. Textual analysis is certainly a major feature of Metzger’s work. In her Attraction universelle, such analysis might reflect her didactic approach. However, she followed the same procedure in all her historical books. Her lack of authority of course meant that her claims were not validated merely by her name on the cover of her books or at the end of her articles: she needed to support whatever she said. Moreover, she was also encouraged to be

90 Berr, ‘Avant-propos’, in Rey (1930), p. vii. Originally, this volume was intended to be written by Rey and Le´ on Robin. However, reportedly the latter insisted on a difference between history of science and history of philosophy that the other two could not accept. Robin supported the traditional view of science as progressive, and of past science as superseded and no longer science (Berr, ‘Avant-propos’ in Rey, 1930, pp. vi–vii).

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informative; for example, the useful short biographies to be found at the end of Newton, Stahl, Boerhaave are there following George Sarton’s suggestion.91 This is not to say that French history of chemistry was unused to commentary on texts.

Marcelin Berthelot, the most important historian of chemistry of the older generation, had greatly contributed to the publication of unpublished texts, ranging from Arabic and Syrian alchemic manuscripts to records of Lavoisier’s laboratory. He wrote the introductions and commentaries to these texts which were published in the original and, where applicable, in the French translation carried out by an expert;92 his works of ‘introduction’ to ‘ancient chemistry’ and alchemy are also focused on lists of sources with commentaries.93 Gaston Milhaud, in his work on ancient science, employed long quotations as well, although in more moderate way than Metzger.94 However, fewer excerpts from primary sources are to be found in the work of most of the historians of science of her generation. Beside her lack of personal authority, there are, I believe, other reasons for her extensive quotations and commentary on texts. Abel Rey employed fewer quotations than Metzger; but a tendency to get away from the explanation of texts is all the more marked in Rey’s successor to the directorship of the IHST, Gaston Bachelard. A trend implicit in the quest for a ‘philosophical method in history of science’, to borrow the title of one of Metzger’s talks, had then arrived at its logical conclusion: history of science had to serve philosophical reasoning. It had been the objective of the ‘new’ historians of science of the 1920s and 1930s to make history of science more intellectually rich than a catalogue of discoveries and theories or a whiggish reconstruction celebrating the success of modern science.

The two models of total history and history of mentalities seem to imply each other in the theoretical statements of many historians and philosophers, and the IHST was ideally suited to realise the integration of these two perspectives. The reality, however, was very complex, and these two ideals, together with other established practices of history-writing pulled in different directions. The focus of the IHST evolved in many ways towards a history of mentalities, which itself evolved into new models. This applies at least to the work of the directors who followed Rey. Gaston Bachelard, who replaced Rey in 1940, focused on the study of the mind in its historical expression; he indeed studied ‘mentalities’, in the sense of ways of thinking and representing the world. For instance, in his La formation de l’esprit scientifique (1993 [1938]), he claimed that the reasoning of natural philosophers, indeed of any pre-nineteenth-century thinkers, was based on a world-view formed by emotions and imagination rather than rationality. For him, the reasoning of alchemists was guided not by a scientific logic, but by sexual imagery; they believed that substances would combine according to certain principles in accord91

Metzger (1974 [1930]), p. 11.

Berthelot (1890, 1893, 1893, 1893, 1887).

93 Berthelot (1885, 1889).

94 Cf. Milhaud (1893).

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ance with their world-view which was dominated by sexual unions.95 The distinction, which later was to become obvious, between organic and inorganic substances, and between human behaviour and the behaviour of inanimate things, did not exist in the world as the alchemists saw it.

Bachelard did indeed analyse the mentalities of natural philosophers and emphasised the ‘epistemological rupture’ which divides their way of thinking from that of modern science. No continuity for him can be drawn between eighteenth-century natural philosophy and twentieth-century science, because their difference lies not just in the quantity of information and in the depth of research but in their practitioners’ way of thinking, of linking events, and in their objectives and aspirations.

In Bachelard’s work, however, ‘total history’ takes a second place, or a different meaning. Bachelard’s analyses and categories apply to whole periods and to general mental attitudes, but he does not demonstrate this by a careful study of a variety of disciplines, institutions and societies. Indeed, his historical examples are often illustrations of his theses, and they are often hastily analysed and sometimes idiosyncratically chosen. In La formation, he analyses what he regards as obstacles to scientific knowledge (such as immediate experience, libido, ‘myth of digestion’, will to systematise and unify knowledge). For each obstacle, he presents many examples, picked from different authors, disciplines and periods. In La psychanalyse du feu (1949 [1938]), he narrows in on one particular obstacle, the images and emotions induced by fire, and broadens the range of examples, including popular festivals, eighteenth-century chemical writings, nineteenth-century novels and avant-garde poems. His subsequent works on Water, Air and Earth are equally attentive to the analysis of ideas rather than to historical and philological detail.96 In Bachelard’s books, none of the authors is the object of a particular study, none of the texts is analysed as a whole. His work is focused on ideas rather the texts.

It comes as no surprise that in her otherwise positive review of La formation, Metzger lamented Bachelard’s patchy representation of eighteenth-century natural philosophy. She wrote: Bachelard is right on what he says, and wrong on what he does not say; his silence on the value of the thought of certain authors he mentions and of the authors he does not mention, tarnishes the exactness of his picture.97

In this brief passage, two differences between Bachelard’s and Metzger’s attitudes towards past texts are apparent. For Metzger, in order to understand a past mentality, it is necessary to acquire a comprehensive knowledge of the writings of the period, at least of a chosen discipline. Bachelard’s choice of only a few authors, and of only certain writings of these authors, was not for Metzger enough in order to draw conclusions on the mentality displayed by eighteenth-century natural phil-

95

See Bachelard (1993 [1938]), pp. 186ff.

Bachelard (1942, 1972 [1943], 1992a [1947], 1992b [1948]).

97 Metzger (1938b), p. 164.

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osophers. Moreover, Metzger wanted to study past authors for their own sake, rather than as a foil to modern scientific mentality. Bachelard employed past texts to prove his point about the functioning of the scientific mind, while the historian Metzger studied them in order to understand them in their own terms.

Bachelard’s later books on modern science, the focus of which is narrower from a chronological point of view, are analyses of the scientific ‘mentality’: textual analysis and historical reflection are very marginal, whereas theory is at the forefront. Under Bachelard’s direction, the journal of the Institute, Thale`s, counted progressively fewer historical works, and rather focused on questions raised by contemporary science.

Bachelard’s student and successor to the directorship of IHST, Georges Canguilhem, if certainly different from him, in many ways carried on a similar line of research which privileged the study of conceptual frameworks over total history and over the careful analysis of texts. Following Bachelard, he also defended the role of epistemology in history of science as the instrument to judge past science, and to distinguish the two types of history that Bachelard called lapsed history and sanctioned history. By contrast, Metzger made a point of not judging past science; she wrote in the introduction of Newton, Stahl, Boerhaave: We have avoided with the greatest care to judge the value of a dead science in the blinding [fulgurante] light of our contemporary theories, considered as definitive acquisitions, for ever stable.98

Canguilhem’s own project was a history of concepts in the context of life sciences, as exemplified in his Formation du concept de re´ flexe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe sie`cles (1977 [1955]) dedicated to ‘Mounsieur Gaston Bachelard, philosopher’. Canguilhem’s aim was to analyse a type of thought and its conditions, not unlike the scholars of mentalities. His arguments closely revolve around the question of conceptual analysis, and do not broaden to offer a comprehensive presentation of authors, disciplines, cultures and societies. The scope of his work is not a ‘total’ historical reconstruction. In Le normal et le pathologique (1966) his departure from the ideal of total history, from a philological focus and commentary of texts is perhaps at its most evident. Here Canguilhem analyses the concept of the ‘normal’, its possible meanings—as (1) what it ought to be, and (2) what is found in the majority of cases, what is average—and its role in medical thought and practice, something that he considered fundamental. Indeed he claims that ‘the thought and activity of the medic are incomprehensible’ without the concept of normal, for while physiology does not necessarily need this concept, a therapeutic programme does. In this work, history of science as study of texts, institutions and society is secondary to epistemological preoccupations and proposals, to say the least. In Canguilhem’s historical epistemology history is the object of philosophical reflection, but he does not aim at ‘producing’ the narratives on which he reflects.

98

Metzger (1974 [1930]), p. 6.

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Canguilhem’s own favourite student, Michel Foucault, regarded the work of ‘historians of sciences’ in France, and in particular of Cavaille`s, Bachelard and Canguilhem, as crucial for one of the two most important theoretical traditions of postwar France, which he called the philosophy of savoir. The other tradition was for him the philosophy of experience, meaning and the subject pursued by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre. The impact of the former tradition was for Foucault remarkably broad: he claimed, for instance, that without Canguilhem’s work, one could not understand Althusser, Althusserians or the discussions ‘which took place among French Marxists’ at large; the work of such sociologists as Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron; nor that of Lacanians in the field of psychoanalysis. One cannot help noticing that the importance of these ‘historians of science’ has not been for Foucault in the historical field. He claims: Works such those of Koyre´ , Bachelard or Canguilhem could indeed have had as their centres of reference precise ‘regional’, chronologically well defined domains in the history of science, but they have functioned as important centres of philosophical elaboration . . . 99

The tradition of total history and of commentary on texts seems completely lost here. The appearance of Koyre´ in the above group refers to the reading of his work done by others rather than to his own aims. Koyre´ never abandoned the objective of unearthing mentalities through a careful commentary of texts; in this, his own work is very different from Bachelard’s and Canguilhem’s. Their different conceptions of history of science did certainly play a major role in the progressive weakening of the interactions between Koyre´ and Bachelard, and between the respective institutions they directed, until they became virtually non-existent after World War II.100 It is beyond doubt that Foucault placed his own work in the tradition of ‘philosophy of savoir’, and of Bachelard and Canguilhem’s ‘history of rationalities’, as he called it. Foucault’s own project could be seen as the radicalisation of the tradition of ‘philosophy of savoir’ and of history of mentalities. The historians of scientific mentalities, such as Bachelard and Canguilhem, and also Metzger and Koyre´ , wanted to show the ‘mentality’ behind a form of scientific knowledge; in other words the ‘conditions’ of possibility of a certain form of knowledge. Metzger called these conditions ‘mental a priori’. She explained the apparently peculiar way of reasoning of the alchemists she studied by their world-view, in which all things were connected and exercised a mutual influence. Foucault made a further step back and analysed the conditions of world-views, experience and behaviour.

He presented his project in Les mots et les choses [The Order of Things] as follows: I am concerned here with observing how a culture experiences the propinquity of things, how it establishes the tabula of their relationships and the order by which

99

Foucault, ‘Introduction’ to Canguilhem (1966), p. 11.

See Chimisso (2001), Ch. 5.

100

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they must be considered. I am concerned, in short, with a history of resemblance: on what conditions was Classical thought able to reflect relations of similarity or equivalence between things, relations that would provide a foundation and a justification for their words, their classifications, their system of exchange?101

Resemblance would have been the explanans for a historian of mentalities, but becomes the explanandum for Foucault. What he called ‘episteme’ lies at a deeper level than mentality, and gives rise to it. The conditions under which people make experiences, see things, classify them, adopt a certain behaviour, are for Foucault historical.102 Following Bachelard and Canguilhem he supports the occurrence of epistemological ruptures. However, Foucault’s writings are not histories in a conventional sense; in fact he introduced the term ‘archaeology’ first and than ‘genealogy’ in order to describe his work. At any rate, his methods, aims, sources and focus were not those of the great majority of historians.

This evolution of the ‘history of mentalities’ approach diverged dramatically from the direction that Henri Berr, and indeed Aldo Mieli, regarded as appropriate for history. The Centre de Synthe`se was a remarkably diverse place, and the great number of intellectuals who gathered around it all had other occupations, most of them in academia, and some of them in politics. The director Henri Berr was the only major figure for whom the Centre and its journal were the most important occupations. Berr’s conception of total history did not harmonise very easily with history of mentalities, especially in the form the latter took in the works of the scholars around the Institut d’Histoire des Science et Techniques. However, at the beginning there had been a sense that the two institutions were complementary, united by the ideals, work and friendship of Rey and Berr. Berr’s focus on the gathering of data and his emphasis on offering the right version of facts was too positivistic for many historians with a commitment to the study of world-views, despite his support of the use of ‘historical psychology’. Lucien Febvre eventually took the encyclopaedic project of the Centre to other enterprises of which he was more in control; when he launched, as the editor, the project of the Encyclope´ die franc¸ aise, he resolved his disagreements with Berr by resigning the direction of the Section de Synthe`se Historique of the Centre. The Unit for History of Science of the Centre suffered similar problems, in a more acute form, although obviously on a smaller scale, given its relatively small size. Mieli’s directorship promoted a positivistic approach much less sophisticated than Berr’s. Some of the projects of the Unit display this positivistic attitude, like that of correction of widely accepted mistakes in the history of science, and that of chronological tables. It is ironic that Metzger’s theoretical papers were read in this environment, which in many ways was the least perceptive to her ideas about the historian’s work of trying to reconstruct the mentality behind past texts and about the difficulty of such hermeneutic and necessarily self-reflexive task. Berr did not accept her historiographical fine 101 102

Foucault (1966), English translation, p. xiv.

See Deleuze (1988), p. 60.

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points, Mieli ignored them, most of the other participants did not fully understand them, or failed to see their importance.

Koyre´ ’s approach was faithful to the general idea of history of mentalities, but, unlike the directors of IHST who followed Rey, did not sacrifice the historical detail and the philological precision to it. However, total history in Koyre´ ’s work is not realised or even aimed at. Although he assumed that a certain conceptual framework was common to all intellectual activities of a given period, he did not step out of the relatively limited field and chosen sample of texts.

Total history and history of mentalities proved very difficult to practise together.

In addition, the attention to sources, their language, structure, references and style, which was a strong tradition not only in history but also specifically in history of science, appeared to be difficult to maintain if a general account of the mentality, or world-view, conceptual structures or episteme had to be given. Where did Metzger stand in this centrifugal movement? More attentive to texts than many colleagues at the IHST, more devoted to the task of capturing the mentality of an age than her interlocutors at the CIS, she aimed to maintain the balance of the two strong ideas of the new historiography without abandoning the tradition of commentary of texts. For her, the study of the mind was to be pursued through a painstaking analysis of texts, which allowed the historian to decipher the mental categories used by the author and understand his or her mental a priori. Indeed, for her it was the detailed study of texts that would reveal the mentality of a period.

In this way, the history of science could serve philosophy, rather than being reduced to it.

Her focus on texts begs the question of the realisation of total history. Metzger defended total history in her lectures and talks, but in her historical work we find very sparse evidence of her claim that ‘no point of human history is irrelevant for the history of the sciences’. She believed that the texts of alchemists, pharmacists, philosophers of metals and chemists showed a fundamental unity in each period and assumed that such unity would have been found in all cultural expressions of the same period. However, she does not consider documents outside her specialty, let alone take into account ‘social and political history’ or ‘history of industry and trade’. She thought that probably she was not competent to do so. The ideal of ‘total history’ as expressed at the Centre de Synthe`se appears to have been a juxtaposition of different histories in order to form a comprehensive encyclopaedia. In this, Metzger was contributing her part. However, her idea of total history as expressed in her theoretical work was more profound and complex than a mere encyclopaedism, and required a higher synthesis informed by the study of mental frameworks in which doctrines develop. At a methodological level, she aimed at a synthesis between a philosophical and a philological approach to history. This attractive ideal proved difficult to realise: the future which she did not see did not bring about the realisation of this utopian synthesis between history and philosophy, and between analysis of texts and theoretical aims. This failure might appear to

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have been inevitable. However, the problem of ‘partial’ approaches has not ceased to exist. On the one hand, scholars who followed the methods of Bachelard, Canguilhem and indeed Foucault are the target of the criticism of more pure historians, who challenge the validity of their conclusions for being supported not by a comprehensive historical study, but rather by generalisations that neglect that which does not fit their interpretations. This was already Metzger’s criticism to Bachelard, and her reasons have not ceased to have substance. Moreover, historians like her who upheld the tradition of commentary of texts would think that in those ‘histories’ the main object—the text and its comprehension—is missing. On the other hand, scholars working within models received from Bachelard, Canguilhem and Foucault would regard histories not informed by an analysis of conceptual frameworks or epistemes anachronistic in a radical sense, because they do not properly consider the difference of the past world under study. They would also regard the scope of non-philosophical histories as very modest; for them, the question of why one should write history in the first place remains unanswered. Metzger shared with other historians of philosophy and science a philosophical reason to write history, that of acquiring a better knowledge of the human mind, which would enable us to formulate better theories. Her proposal seems rather optimistic and somewhat simplistic; however, I find her reflection on reasons why history should matter to us very important. Metzger’s exigency of creating a synthesis between philological and philosophical approaches does still matter, and still seems unachievable. I believe, however, that it is preferable to have it as a regulative ideal, rather than discarding it as a chimera.

Acknowledgements—I have carried out the research for this article thanks to the George and May Sarton fellowship that the American Academy of Arts and Sciences awarded to me in 1999. The Sarton fellowship allowed me to do full-time research for one year and also funded my trips between Cambridge, Mass., and London, where I was Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Philosophy of the Social and Natural Sciences, London School of Economics. The staff of the Houghton Library of Harvard helped me in my research in the Sarton papers; the staff of the Wellcome Institute Library were very helpful in tracking down Metzger’s letters hidden in the Singer papers. The Sarton fellowship has for me a very special meaning, because of Metzger’s letters to George and also to May, and because the poet May Sarton created it with her bequest, and the first one was awarded to me, another woman, in order to study the work of a third woman, He´ le`ne Metzger. My warmest thanks to Gerard Holton and Everett Mendelsohn for their advice and suggestions. I have ‘tried’ parts of this paper in seminars which proved very useful to rethink some aspects of it: at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (Philadelphia), which kindly invited me and funded my trip from Europe, and finally at the History of Science Society meeting (Vancouver, 2000). As always, Brian Alleyne offered his insightful comments.

References Archives Letters by and to Sarton, including Metzger’s, are at the Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass., USA: bMs Am 1803 (letters to Sarton); bMs Am 1803.1 (letters

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by Sarton). I have indicated in the footnotes when Metzger’s letters have been published in Freudenthal (ed.) (1990). In the published version, however, the letters have not been reproduced in their entirety.

Letters by and to Charles and Dorothea Singer, including Metzger’s, are at the Wellcome Institute Library, London, UK: PP/CJS. Journals Revue de synthe`se Archeion Annales de l’Universite´ de Paris

Works by He´ le`ne Metzger This is list of the works cited in this article. For a complete bibliography see Freudenthal (ed.) (1990a).

(1918) La gene`se de la science des cristaux (Paris: Alcan).

(1926) Les concepts scientifiques (Paris: Alcan).

(1929) ‘La philosophie d’E´ mile Meyerson et l’histoire des sciences’, Archeion 11, xxxii– xliii (repr. in Metzger, 1987).

(1930a) La chimie (Paris: Boccard); Engl. tr., Chemistry (West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill Press, 1991).

(1930b) ‘La philosophie de Le´ vy-Bruhl et l’histoire des sciences’, Archeion 12, 15–24 (repr. in Metzger, 1987).

(1935a) La philosophie de la matie`re chez Lavoisier (Paris: Hermann).

(1935b) ‘Re´ flexions sur le Congre`s international de philosophie scientifique (Paris, Sorbonne, 15–25 September 1935)’, Archeion 17, 21–23 (repr. in Metzger, 1987).

(1936) ‘L’a priori dans la doctrine scientifique et l’histoire des sciences’, Archeion 18, 29– 42 (repr. in Metzger, 1987).

(1937) ‘La me´ thode philosophique dans l’histoire des sciences’, Archeion 19, 204–216 (repr. in Metzger, 1987).

(1938a) Attraction universelle et religion naturelle chez quelques commentateurs anglais de Newton (Paris: Hermann).

(1938b) ‘Gaston Bachelard. La Formation de l’esprit scientifique. Contribution a` une psychanalyse de la connaissance objective’, Archeion 21, 162–165.

(1938c) ‘Alchemie’, Revue de synthe`se 8, 43–53.

(1947) ‘Atome. Projet d’article pour un Vocabulaire historique’, Revue d’histoire des sciences et de leurs applications 1, 51–62.

(1969) [1923] Les doctrines chimiques en France du de´ but du XVIIe a` la fin du XVIIIe sie`cle (Paris: Blanchard).

(1974) [1930] Newton, Stahl, Boerhaave et la doctrine chimique (Paris: Blanchard).

(1987) La me´ thode philosophique en histoire des sciences. Textes 1914–1939 (Paris: Fayard).

Other References Bachelard, G. (1942) L’eau et les reˆ ves: Essai sur l’imagination de la matie`re (Paris: Corti); Engl. tr., Water and Dreams. An Essay on the Imagination of Matter (Dallas: The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, 1982).

Bachelard, G. (1949) [1938] La psychanalyse du feu (Paris: Gallimard); Engl. tr., The Psychoanalysis of Fire (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964).

Bachelard, G. (1972) [1943] L’air et les songes. Essai sur l’imagination du mouvement (Paris: Corti); Engl. tr., Air and Dreams. An Essay on the Imagination of Movement (Dallas: The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, 1983).

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Bachelard, G. (1992a) [1947] La terre et les reˆ veries de la volonte´ . Essai sur l’imagination de la matie`re (Paris: Corti).

Bachelard, G. (1992b) [1948] La terre et les reˆ veries du repos. Essai sur les images de l’intimite´ (Paris: Corti).

Bachelard, G. (1993) [1938] La formation de l’esprit scientifique. Contribution a` une psychanalyse de la connaissance objective (Paris: Vrin).

Berr, H. (1911) La synthe`se en histoire; essai critique et the´ orique (Paris: Alcan).

Berr, H. (1925) ‘Pour la science’, Revue de synthe`se 18, 5–16.

Berthelot, M. (1885) Les origines de l’alchemie (Paris: Steinheil).

Berthelot, M. (1887) Collections des anciens alchimistes (Paris: Steinheil).

Berthelot, M. (1889) Introduction a l’e´ tude de la chimie des anciens et du Moyen aˆ ge (Paris: Steinheil).

Berthelot, M. (1890) La re´ volution chimique; Lavoisier (Paris: Steinheil).

Berthelot, M. (1893a) La chimie au Moyen aˆ ge, tome I: Essai sur la transmission de la science antique au Moyen aˆ ge (Paris: Steinheil).

Berthelot, M. (1893b) La chimie au Moyen aˆ ge, tome II: L’alchimie syriaque (Paris: Steinheil).

Berthelot, M. (1893c) La chimie au Moyen aˆ ge, tome III: La chimie arabe (Paris: Steinheil).

Bloch, M. (1924) Les rois thaumaturges: Etude sur le caracte`re surnaturel attribue´ a` la puissance royale, particulie`rement en France et en Angleterre (Strasbourg: Faculte´ des lettres de l’Universite´ de Strasbourg).

Brunschvicg, L. (1912) Les e´ tapes de la philosophie mathe´ matique (Paris: Alcan).

Candar, G. and Pluet, G. (eds) (1997) Lucien Febvre: Lettres a` Henri Berr (Paris: Fayard).

Canguilhem, G. (1966) Le normal et le pathologique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France); Engl tr., The Normal and the Pathological, with an introduction by M. Foucault (New York: Zone Books, 1989).

Canguilhem, G. (1977) La formation du concept de re´ flexe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe sie`cles (Paris: Vrin).

Charle, C. (1984) ‘Le beau marriage de Emile Durkheim’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 55, 45–49.

Charle, C. (1986) Les professeurs de la faculte´ des lettres de Paris. Dictionnaire biographique 1909–1939 (Paris: Institut de Recherche Pe´ dagogique, CNRS).

Charrier, E. (1931) E´ volution intellectuelle fe´ minine (Paris: Mechelinck).

Chimisso, C. (2000) ‘The Mind and the Faculties: The Controversy over “Primitive Mentality” and the Struggle for Disciplinary Space at the Inter-War Sorbonne’, History of the Human Sciences 13, 47–68.

Chimisso, C. (2001) Gaston Bachelard: Critic of Science and the Imagination (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers).

Clark, F. I. (1937) The Position of Women in Contemporary France (London: King and Son).

Deleuze, G. (1988) Foucault (Minneapolis and London: University of Minneapolis Press).

Febvre, L. (1942) Le probleme de l’incroyance au XVIe sie`cle, la religion de Rabelais (Paris: A. Michel).

Fondation ‘Pour la science’, Centre International de Synthe`se (1929) L’Hoˆ tel de Nevers et le Centre International de Synthe`se (Paris: La Renaissance du livre).

Foucault, M. (1966) Les mots et les choses: une arche´ ologie des sciences humaines (Paris: Gallimard); Engl. tr., The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences (London: Tavistock, 1970).

Freudenthal, G. (ed.) (1990a). E´ tudes sur/Studies on He´ le`ne Metzger (Leiden: Brill).

Freudenthal, G. (1990b) ‘Episte´ mologie des sciences de la nature et herme´ neutique de l’histoire des sciences selon He´ le`ne Metzger’, in Freudenthal (1990a), 161–168.

Gemelli, G. (1987) ‘Communaute´ intellectuelle et strate´ gies institutionnelles: Henri Berr et la fondation du Centre international de synthe`se’, Revue de synthe`se IV(2), 225–259.

Guigue, A. (1935) La Faculte´ de Lettres de l’Universite´ de Paris depuis sa fondation (17 Mars 1808) jusqu’au 1er Janvier 1935 (Paris: Alcan).

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International Committee for the History of Science (1936) IIIe Congre`s International d’Histoire des Sciences tenu a Portugal du 30 Septembre au 6 Octobre 1934: Actes, Confe´ rences et communications (Lisbon).

Koyre´ , A. (1939) Etudes Galile´ ennes (Paris: Hermann); Engl. tr., Galileo Studies (Hassocks, Sussex: Harvest Press, 1978).

Koyre´ , A. (1958) From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (New York: Harper).

Koyre´ , A. (1963) ‘Commentary’, in A. Crombie (ed.), Scientific Change. Historical Studies in the Intellectual, Social and Technical Conditions for Scientific Discoveries and Technical Invention, from Antiquity to the Present (London: Heinemann).

Koyre´ , A. (1965) Newtonian Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

Koyre´ , A. (1986) De la mystique a` la science: Cours, confe´ rences et documents 1922–1962, e´ dite´ s par Pietro Redondi (Paris: E´ ditions de l’E´ cole des Hautes E´ tudes en Sciences Sociales).

Lalande, A. (1932) [1902–3] Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie (Paris: Alcan).

Le´ vy-Bruhl, L. (1910) Le fonctions mentales dans les socie´ te´ s infe´ rieures (Paris: Alcan).

Le´ vy-Bruhl, L. (1922) La mentalite´ primitive (Paris: Alcan).

Metzger, P. (1913) Le conseil supe´ rieur et le grand bailliage de Lyon (Lyon; Paris: Rey; Picard).

Milhaud, G. (1893) Lec¸ ons sur les origines de la science grecque (Paris: Alcan).

Mieli, A. (1938a) La science arabe et son roˆ le dans l’e´ volution scientifique mondiale (Leiden: Brill).

Mieli, A. (1938b) ‘Il tricentenario dei “Discorsi” di Galileo Galilei’, Archeion 21, 193–297.

Mu¨ ller, B. (1997) ‘Lucien Febvre et Henri Berr: De la synthe`se a` l’histoire-proble`me’, in A. Biard, D. Bourel and E. Brian (eds), Henri Berr et la culture du XXe sie`cle (Paris: Albin Michel/Centre International de Synthe`se), pp. 39–60.

Rey, A. (1930) La science dans l’antiquite´ , vol. 1: La science orientale avant le grecs (Paris: La Renaissance du livre).

Rey, A. (1934) ‘Avant-propos’, Thale`s 1, xvi–xix.

Sirinelli, J.-F. (1994) Ge´ ne´ ration intellectuelle: Khaˆ gneux et Normaliens dans l’entre-deuxguerres (Paris: Presses Universitaires des France).