Samuel Damren
This is the third commentary in a series describing the perspectives of the Founding Fathers on “thinking like a scientist.”
The first two commentaries focused on Benjamin Franklin. This commentary will discuss an individual well known to Colonial leaders but less familiar in the present day: David Rittenhouse (1732-96).
Rittenhouse was “America’s Newton.” A child genius and the son of farmers, Rittenhouse received only a basic education and was thereafter self-taught. At age 13, he mastered Newton’s calculus as well as the laws of gravity and motion.
Rittenhouse would go on to construct models of paper mills, then working clocks, tools and as an adult, scientific instruments including two orreries – mechanical scale models of the Solar System – still in existence at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.
Rittenhouse’s report on the transit path of Venus in 1769 brought international fame as an astronomer. The telescope he utilized to make the detailed observations was of his own making.
An Oration “Promoting Useful Knowledge” that Rittenhouse delivered in February 1775 to the American Philosophical Society, which was originally founded by Benjamin Franklin, is the focus of this commentary.
The Oration was later published in a pamphlet addressed to the delegates of the Continental Congress “to whom the future liberties and, consequently, the virtue, improvement in science, of America are entrusted.” Each delegate received a personal copy.
The Oration is of value today because it presents Rittenhouse’s views — in his own words — of what it means to “think like a scientist.”
Excerpts are set forth below. The headings are mine; the quoted text is from the Oration with guidance as to context and particular terms in brackets.
—————
On the relationship of scientific discovery to religion
“As truth is always consistent with itself, so many new proofs were furnished from time to time by new discoveries, that a mistaken interpretation of some passages in the Bible was compelled to give way to the force of astronomical evidence.
“Our religion teaches us what Philosophy could not have … But neither Religion nor Philosophy forbids us to believe that [the creator’s] infinite wisdom and power … may have frequently interposed in a manner quite incomprehensible to us, when [understanding] became necessary to the happiness of created beings.”
—————
Implications with respect to other worlds
In the middle section of the Oration, Rittenhouse notes that advances in astronomy may
include the discovery of planetary life elsewhere in the universe. He cleverly uses that possibility as a springboard to address several “hot-button” political issues.
“How far indeed the inhabitants of the other planets may resemble man, we cannot pretend to say … If their inhabitants resemble man in their faculties and affections, let us suppose that they are wise enough to govern themselves according to the dictates that reason their creator has given them … Happy people!”
Rittenhouse then pivots to note that from the perspective of this “happy people,” existing governments on earth lack similar wisdom and proceeds to provide examples.
—————
On slavery and racism
First, Rittenhouse speculates that “inhabitants of the other planets” may be “more happy still, that all communication with us is [currently] denied. We have neither corrupted you with our vices nor injured you by violence … None of your sons and daughters, degraded from their native dignity, have been doomed to endless slavery by us in America, merely because their bodies maybe disposed to reflect or absorb the rays of light, in a way different from ours.”
—————
On greed
Second, citing additional benefits resulting from the separation of worlds, Rittenhouse notes that “you [inhabitants of other worlds] are [also] effectively secured, alike from the rapacious hand of the haughty Spaniard, and of the unfeeling British nabob.
Even British thunder [canons] impelled by British thirst of gain, cannot reach you.” [“British nabob” was a pejorative reference to “a conspicuously wealthy individual returning from India with a fortune.”]
—————
On luxury and tyranny
As an example of “tyrannical” government actions on earth, Rittenhouse next cites the highly contentious British colonial acts, such as the Stamp Act. These Colonial rules required Americans to import high-priced “luxury” goods through Britain rather than manufacture or obtain them elsewhere. They were then the subject of the incendiary colonial protests and boycotts that would spark the Revolutionary War only two months after the Oration was first delivered.
“Luxury and tyranny … pretend at first to be the patrons of science and philosophy, but at length fail not effectively to destroy them; agitated by these reflections, I am ready to wish that nature would raise her everlasting bars between the new and old world; and make voyage to Europe as impracticable as one to the moon … Let our harbours, our doors, our hearts, be shut against luxury.”
—————
The benefits of science
In closing, Rittenhouse turns “to consider [the] happy effects of science, on the human mind … it is of great service to mankind, in banishing bigotry and superstition from amongst us … to dilate the heart with universal benevolence, and to enlarge its views. [Science]
does this without propagating a single point of doctrine contrary to common sense, or the most cultivated reason. It flatters no fashionable princely vice, or national depravity. It encourages not the libertine by relaxing any of the precepts of morality.”
Rittenhouse’s ambitions for science to have a central role in transforming American life were reflective of Revolutionary times.
Historians suggest that his idealism and optimism, in fact, influenced the selection of a circle of thirteen stars in the republic’s first flag symbolizing American democracy as a “new Constellation” in the progress of humankind.
The next commentary in this series contrasts current government policy and attitudes toward the scientific community with the respect that the Founding Fathers had for “thinking like a scientist.”
The first two commentaries focused on Benjamin Franklin. This commentary will discuss an individual well known to Colonial leaders but less familiar in the present day: David Rittenhouse (1732-96).
Rittenhouse was “America’s Newton.” A child genius and the son of farmers, Rittenhouse received only a basic education and was thereafter self-taught. At age 13, he mastered Newton’s calculus as well as the laws of gravity and motion.
Rittenhouse would go on to construct models of paper mills, then working clocks, tools and as an adult, scientific instruments including two orreries – mechanical scale models of the Solar System – still in existence at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.
Rittenhouse’s report on the transit path of Venus in 1769 brought international fame as an astronomer. The telescope he utilized to make the detailed observations was of his own making.
An Oration “Promoting Useful Knowledge” that Rittenhouse delivered in February 1775 to the American Philosophical Society, which was originally founded by Benjamin Franklin, is the focus of this commentary.
The Oration was later published in a pamphlet addressed to the delegates of the Continental Congress “to whom the future liberties and, consequently, the virtue, improvement in science, of America are entrusted.” Each delegate received a personal copy.
The Oration is of value today because it presents Rittenhouse’s views — in his own words — of what it means to “think like a scientist.”
Excerpts are set forth below. The headings are mine; the quoted text is from the Oration with guidance as to context and particular terms in brackets.
—————
On the relationship of scientific discovery to religion
“As truth is always consistent with itself, so many new proofs were furnished from time to time by new discoveries, that a mistaken interpretation of some passages in the Bible was compelled to give way to the force of astronomical evidence.
“Our religion teaches us what Philosophy could not have … But neither Religion nor Philosophy forbids us to believe that [the creator’s] infinite wisdom and power … may have frequently interposed in a manner quite incomprehensible to us, when [understanding] became necessary to the happiness of created beings.”
—————
Implications with respect to other worlds
In the middle section of the Oration, Rittenhouse notes that advances in astronomy may
include the discovery of planetary life elsewhere in the universe. He cleverly uses that possibility as a springboard to address several “hot-button” political issues.
“How far indeed the inhabitants of the other planets may resemble man, we cannot pretend to say … If their inhabitants resemble man in their faculties and affections, let us suppose that they are wise enough to govern themselves according to the dictates that reason their creator has given them … Happy people!”
Rittenhouse then pivots to note that from the perspective of this “happy people,” existing governments on earth lack similar wisdom and proceeds to provide examples.
—————
On slavery and racism
First, Rittenhouse speculates that “inhabitants of the other planets” may be “more happy still, that all communication with us is [currently] denied. We have neither corrupted you with our vices nor injured you by violence … None of your sons and daughters, degraded from their native dignity, have been doomed to endless slavery by us in America, merely because their bodies maybe disposed to reflect or absorb the rays of light, in a way different from ours.”
—————
On greed
Second, citing additional benefits resulting from the separation of worlds, Rittenhouse notes that “you [inhabitants of other worlds] are [also] effectively secured, alike from the rapacious hand of the haughty Spaniard, and of the unfeeling British nabob.
Even British thunder [canons] impelled by British thirst of gain, cannot reach you.” [“British nabob” was a pejorative reference to “a conspicuously wealthy individual returning from India with a fortune.”]
—————
On luxury and tyranny
As an example of “tyrannical” government actions on earth, Rittenhouse next cites the highly contentious British colonial acts, such as the Stamp Act. These Colonial rules required Americans to import high-priced “luxury” goods through Britain rather than manufacture or obtain them elsewhere. They were then the subject of the incendiary colonial protests and boycotts that would spark the Revolutionary War only two months after the Oration was first delivered.
“Luxury and tyranny … pretend at first to be the patrons of science and philosophy, but at length fail not effectively to destroy them; agitated by these reflections, I am ready to wish that nature would raise her everlasting bars between the new and old world; and make voyage to Europe as impracticable as one to the moon … Let our harbours, our doors, our hearts, be shut against luxury.”
—————
The benefits of science
In closing, Rittenhouse turns “to consider [the] happy effects of science, on the human mind … it is of great service to mankind, in banishing bigotry and superstition from amongst us … to dilate the heart with universal benevolence, and to enlarge its views. [Science]
does this without propagating a single point of doctrine contrary to common sense, or the most cultivated reason. It flatters no fashionable princely vice, or national depravity. It encourages not the libertine by relaxing any of the precepts of morality.”
Rittenhouse’s ambitions for science to have a central role in transforming American life were reflective of Revolutionary times.
Historians suggest that his idealism and optimism, in fact, influenced the selection of a circle of thirteen stars in the republic’s first flag symbolizing American democracy as a “new Constellation” in the progress of humankind.
The next commentary in this series contrasts current government policy and attitudes toward the scientific community with the respect that the Founding Fathers had for “thinking like a scientist.”
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