Victorian Studies

History of science seems to follow St. Augustine's advice to Christians to beware of mathematicians—who have covenanted with the devil and have the effect of confining man to the bonds of Hell. Though the histories of mathematics and science do not mix, the currents between these two islands of thought are strong but deceptive. As suggested by John Hedley Brooke in his Science and Religion (1991), the reality of the relationship between religion and science is complex. We should expect the same reaction when mathematics is substituted for science.

Daniel J. Cohen argues that the mathematicians of the early Victorian generation were inspired by religious concepts. He examines the lives of three prominent practitioners and uncovers their primary motivations. Implicit in his argument is that a very short time period in the nineteenth century saw a sharp break from mathematics infused with religion to secular mathematics.

Pure mathematics is often regarded as the exemplar of a value-free subject. Bertrand Russell defined it in strict logical terms, as the class of all propositions of the form "[p] implies [q]. " Viewed thus, pure mathematics appears to be an abstract study divorced from any connection with application. Cohen's three pure mathematicians all preceded Russell: the American Benjamin Peirce and the English George Boole and Augustus De Morgan. But does his selection represent a more general trend?

All Cohen's men are Christians, though they could also be described as mavericks. De Morgan was a non-joiner and claimed to be a "Christian unattached" (108). Boole was not a member of any church but leant towards the Unitarians. Peirce did not follow any organised creed but like the other two possessed Unitarian leanings. They were all seekers after Truth in a wider context in contrast to the more limited aim of the modern mathematician, who tends only to claim mathematical truth within the framework of mathematical theory.

Boole was a dedicated seeker: "the great results of Science, and the primal truths of religion and morals, have an existence quite independent of our faculties and of our recognition. . . . It is given to us to discover Truth—we are permitted to comprehend it; but its sole origin is in the will or the character of the Creator; and this is the real connecting link between Science and Religion (Desmond MacHale, George Boole [1985] 43). Russell called him the "father of pure mathematics," but as Cohen shows, Boole was far removed from the "p implies q" definition of mathematics and the icy blast of mathematics as pure deduction. He was instead a "warm-blooded, religiously concerned idealist" (78).

As a young man Peirce "maintained that the Bible embodied a higher form of truth than science. When there is doubt as to the relative positions of these streams of thought, science should bend to the Scriptures and not vice versa" (53), though this assertive viewpoint became less prominent as Peirce grew older. But God remained a focus. Whereas geniuses have the job of uncovering great mathematical laws, Peirce wrote that mathematics "vibrates in every soul" and that this ability of humankind to understand it is part of God's plan of giving "every individual the capacity to know of His existence and intelligence" (75). De Morgan has perhaps the strongest link with modernity. Much to his mother's consternation he moved away from established religion as a young man, and, by [End Page 336] the end of his career, concluded that religion and mathematics should not mix at all (136). Cohen's three subjects all left behind a wealth of evidence on these questions, and he skilfully assembles it into a lively and informative story.

Though many mathematicians in Victorian Britain professed membership in the Anglican church, many treated the question of religious belief as a private matter. We may never know their true religious affinities or how these affected their motivations. A mathematical leader such as Arthur Cayley, for example, was a...