Victorians response ( second reading assignment) Gabriela Lipson

1. I would really like to discuss the irony of the Victorian age with all of you, how science was employed in a myriad of conflicting ways to justify ideas that were at odds with each other.

New discoveries of the Victorian Age in the sciences of geology, astronomy, and evolutionary biology provided substantial evidence to the Victorians of their smallness in the context of Earth’s history, while science and technology were simultaneously strongly employed to justify the British Empire’s perception of their own superiority and their dominion over the “lesser,primitive” peoples of the lands they conquered.

Victorian scientists such as Darwin, Hutton, and Lyell showed the world that humans were a mere blip in Earth’s timeline. Gange writes, “The relation of human history to the world’s total past was that of a fingernail to an outstretched arm” when referring to new Victorian theories of time and existence.

With this new scientific knowledge, some Victorians began view the world through a lease of “intellectual superiority.” Writings shows how strongly some Englishmen judged native peoples that they often encountered on their solar eclipse expeditions.

Gange writes that the awe the British expressed for the eclipse “contrasted with disdain for the supposed responses of ‘natives’ who ‘in Africa ran in great distress… [for] they could not comprehend the nature of meaning of an eclipse’ or Chinese observers who ‘beat their gongs’”. (Gange, The Victorians, Ch 3).

This is a prime example of ethnocentrism. The British believed that they were entitled to have dominion over the lands they “discovered’’ and used their “science” as another way to justify their racism. “Lesser” people didnt “know science”.

Ironically, the Chinese had long been studying astronomy ( long before the British did) dating back to the second millennium BC.

Another relevant example in Gange’s book refers to the activities of the East India company. George Everest, Surveyor General of India, ‘’changed’’ cartographic practices, insisting that maps be made with new European instruments to undermine the locals.

These ‘’changes’’ weren’t scientifically necessary, as old ways of mapping were sufficient, and the Indians already had archived maps and surveys.

Gange writes,”The expensive new trigonometric surveys of the 1830s and 1840s were conducted with mathematical techniques involving calculus and Newtonian mechanics, which Everest believed Indian people were not capable of using. The historian of science Matthew Edney has demonstrated just how little difference these changes of technique and technology made to the quality or precision of mapping: this was not a scientific ‘leapforward’ so much as a change of ideology.’’ ( Gange, The Victorians, ch3).

This is again ironic because the very math that the English used as the foundation for their study of Calculus and Newtonian mechanics originated in India. The idea of infinity ( a concept central to calculus) originated in India during the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

This idea of British superiority was not based in fact. While there was great scientific advancement in the Victorian age, knowledge was also twisted and used to formulate elaborate lies to justify British hegemony (ie. Chinese and Indian ignorance of scientific fact).

Question 2:
I decided to focus on Victorian writings on Greece and Rome.

Victorians critiqued the British parliament by drawing literary parallels to Greece, later focusing predominantlyon Greece’s demise in the hope that Britain would avoid ‘’a fall of empire’’ by learning from the past.

Mitford, a prominent parliamentarian and writer before the onset of the Victorian age, praised Greek tyrants and kings, arguing that Greece was superior in its time of monarchical rule before the advent of Athenian democracy—which he condemned.
Gange writes, “Mitford explained the inadequacies of the Athenian republic by arguing that the evil of slavery was directly linked to democracy: only because slaves kept Athenian society running could free citizens (that deluded ‘community of lordly beggars’) spend time conducting’’ ( Gange, The Victorians, Ch5).

Mitford’s writing would contrast starkly with the new popular sentiment of the Victorian age, from writers like George Grote, that democracy was to be praised and emulated. Gange writes of changing opinions, ‘’Greek tyrants and kings were soon presented as rapacious men whose only interest was in keeping the fruits of misgovernment for themselves. Democracy, for the first time in British history, was becoming an ideal to aspire towards.’’ ( Gange, the Victorians ch9)

Gange also writes the following when referring to new writers such as Grote, “It was entirely in keeping with the spirit of the age that the cases for democracy, liberty, and reform should achieve their greatest statement in a vast historical survey of an ancient society.’’ ( Gange, the Victorians, Ch5).

The praising of Greece’s democracy could be viewed as a thinly veiled appreciation for the House of Commons. The Victorian age was a time of wildly different opinions, although the governmental model moved towards modern democracy, like that of the United States, and Greece and Rome were soon abandoned as examples.

Gange summarizes this when he writes “What Mitford, Grote, and the hundreds of others who wrote about ancient Athens did was to produce the precise understanding of what democracy meant that could then be transferred to the political context of the present day.” ( Gange, the Victorians, Ch5). The Victorians used their writings of Greece and antiquity to critique parliament and governance during the Victorian age, and such intellectual pursuits also excluded modest people from participating in government (as they could not read Greek or Latin).