to be placed near the end of the table [the central flat-top cabinet], opposite the Electrostatic
Generator, [...] each on a separate pedestal, on which they should be able to be displaced if
the table had to be moved when Electrical experiments were carried out”; there was talk of “a
big Telescope of six or seven feet, of the kind that is now manufactured by the famous
Herschel to be placed on “the flat roof of the Museum” (presumably the roof-top
observatory), and the Second Society also wished to place “in the middle of the table a large
moving orrery, which will there, it is assumed, greatly serve as an adornment”.46
Perhaps even more importantly though, the second of the two new categories of instruments,
as defined by van Marum, was to complement the other two, and consist of “simple
mechanical, hydrostatic, hydraulic and optical machines”. The reason these simple machines
were to be included in the museum’s collection was that “the complex machines cannot be
understood without knowing the simple ones”.
In other words, there was now clearly an educational component to van Marum’s acquisition
policy. Instruments were not only to be purchased for their value as research tools, but also in
order to demonstrate state of the art technology and general physical principles. At this point
it needs to be stressed however that van Marum was not trying to set up an exhibition - the
aim was not to create some kind of educational, self-explanatory display at Teylers Museum,
let alone an exhibition that would have been aimed at, and been accessible to, the general
populace. As will transpire from an analysis of visitors’ travel reports below, even though
Teylers Museum was open to all in principle, all available evidence suggests that access was
still comparatively restrictive, and essentially reserved for members of the elite.
So then why include devices from these two new categories in the museum’s collection? In all
likelihood, van Marum was trying to establish himself as a popular lecturer. It is highly
plausible that he would have seen himself as the last in a long line of famous Dutchmen such
as ‘s Gravesande, Musschenbroek, or Fahrenheit, all of whom had become international
figureheads of Newtonian experimental science through their immensely successful
publications and presentations, devised not just for experts, but for a lay audience as well.
8. Increasing Popularity
Why an up-and-coming and evidently highly talented scholar such as van Marum would
aspire to make a name for himself through popular lectures, rather than “pure research”, may
sound puzzling to contemporary ears. But in order to understand this it is important to realise
“gevoeglijk in de tegenwoordige glazen kästen [...] geplaatst worden”; “nabij het eind van de tafel, tegens
over de Electrizeer-Machine, [...] elk op een afzonderlijk pedestal, met welk zij verzet moesten kunnen worden,
wanneer bij het doen van Electrische proeven de tafel moet verschoven worden”; “een groot Thelescoop van zes
o f zeven voeten, van dat soort, het welk thans door den beroemden Herschel vervaardigd wordt”; “het plat van
het Museum”; “op het midden van de tafel een groot bewegend Orrerij, hetgeen men oordeelt al daar zeer tot
cieraad te zullen kunnen verstrekken”; Ibid.
that the pronounced distinction between amateurs and professionals in science is something
that only emerged over the course of the 19th century. At the end of the 18 century, the line
between amateurs and specialists had not been drawn as sharply yet. Of course there were
differences between amateurs and experts - van Marum for instance was very conscious of
his status as an experienced expert in the description and analysis of natural phenomena; the
restricted access to the inner sanctum of his studies, Teylers Museum, can be seen as part of
an attempt to uphold that status - not so much in the sense that van Marum actively denied
others interested in the natural sciences access to the knowledge held at Teylers, but in the
sense that a certain sensitivity, etiquette, perhaps even good breeding was requisite to
appreciate this workplace, and simply also not to damage the sensitive equipment it contained.
Yet even though a certain exclusivity associated with any pursuit of knowledge in the name of
science cannot be denied even during this period in history, what is important is that at the
end of the 18th century the boundaries which defined that exclusivity were drawn differently
from the way they were drawn at the end of the 19 century.
This brings us back to the distinction between amateurs and professionals; by the end of the
19th century the exclusive rights to any meaningful and trustworthy statement about natural
phenomena had successfully been claimed by a community of specialists which in turn
defined itself through its members’ systematic training in the methods of experimental science
and the mathematical evaluation of data. Put differently, the domain of “science had been
monopolised by professional “scientists”.
The less permeable the boundaries delineating the scientific community became, the more the
character of “popular” science changed too. Popular science was increasingly equated with
the simplification of the thought patterns and explanatory systems “scientists” had adopted or
devised. These simplifications were of no use within the community of specialists themselves;
they could only be used whenever such a trained specialist ventured outside the boundaries of
the community, or, perhaps, by those who acted as intermediaries between those on either side
of these boundaries, i.e. “popularisers”.
Now, the crucial point as far as van Marum’s ambitions and the history of Teylers Museum
are concerned, is that to van Marum - as well as his predecessors such as Fahrenheit or ‘s
Gravesande - giving popular lectures would not have felt like venturing outside the
impenetrable boundaries of some sort of community. They would not have considered
themselves “popularisers” in the sense described above. They knew of course that they had to
take their audience’s prior knowledge Hor lack thereofB into account, and they would have
spoken differently amongst each other than they did in their lectures; but they would not have
denied — or at least not as vigorously as “scientists” would by the end of the 19 century —
that their audiences could fully grasp what they themselves had understood and were
explaining, or perhaps even take up scientific experimenting. Their aim in giving a series of
lectures was subtly, but crucially, different from the aims of later “popularisers” too: the aim
was to spread the knowledge they had gained so that it could be adopted and applied by
others, ideally for the betterment of society; vanity was involved, but to a far lesser degree
and in a different manner than with later popularisers, who were far more interested in
keeping their listeners in awe of both “science” and “scientists”, cultivating the image of