Improving Instruments

Historians have long been wary of teleological narratives of scientific change. But it is possible to tell a progressive narrative without being teleological, and that is precisely the kind of narrative that is needed to make sense of science in eighteenth-century Europe. Change in this period tended to be incremental rather than sudden, evolutionary rather than revolutionary. This may be illustrated by the scientific instruments of the period, which were usually improvements on existing instruments rather than entirely new instruments. Existing instruments were combined, their power augmented, and their accuracy increased, three routes to improvement that may be illustrated by the gazometer, the reflecting telescope, and the theodolite. The notion of improved instruments was a variant of a wider phenomenon in the eighteenth century, the use of “improvement” and similar notions to understand economic and political change.