per medium elasticum/ 1747J,

)blとmes de calcul integral,'1 76ユー

. 551--4.
)parente du soleil,'Me'moires血
is), 1754, pp. 52ト64; especi坤

['OeuvT･e SCientljique de Mo噂も

i Son,'Journal de l'Ecole Pd_'･-

9
). 319-92.
aleur '(unpublished memoir rea血

. 115; MS. 1851, Bibliothとqucde

The Controversy on Freedom in Science
his MS. has been micro地
Lehanneur, Conservateur de a in the Nineteenth Century
the University Library, hds_)

JOHN R. BAKER

HB future historianof science in England will look back on the 1930s

T and '40s as a period of conBict in thought about freedom in science.

From 1931 Onwards for several years, those who believed in the
central planning Of scienti丘c research dominated thefield, because there

qs no systematic body of thought that opposed their opinions. The need

for freedom in science had so much been taken for granted for several
地des past, that no one had troubled to armhimselfwith a consistent

theory embodying the reasons why freedom was desirable in thisfield. It

was not until 1939 that active steps were taken by anyone to oppose the
mrrent propaganda on the necessity for central plannlng･ Zn that year
Ptofessor Michael Polanyi published his paper on Rl･ghts and Duties of
且血ce･l The story of the reaction among scientists against the central

phnners has been told elsewhere2 and need not be repeated here. For the
Pment Purpose it is only necessary to note that throughout the long con-
troversy, no mention was ever made of the discussion of a si血lar topic in

the previous century･ Yet die Fpeiheit der Wissenschaft had been a familiar
phrase to many, well over half a century before Professor Polanyi wrote his
ardcle.
TLe oblivion into which the earlier controversy had fallen is all the more
inexplicable inview of the celebrity-onemight almost say notoriety-of
the two protagonists･ It is surprlSlng that a head-on clash between such
･contestants as Haeckel and Virchow should be forgotten. The encounter
vas memorable in more ways than one-not least because the two men
night have been expected to take their places on the same side ｡f the
battlefield･ For these two masterfd personalities of the biological world
had much in common.
Virchow was by thirteen years the senior･Asa young doctor he was
由ply shocked when he saw for himself, in an epidemic of typhus, how

89