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When the Royal Society of Edinburgh was constituted in 1783, science was relatively circumscribed, and scholars could meet regularly and usually converse freely on the basis of an assumed, shared body of scientific and literary knowledge. The ease with which one could move from discipline to discipline is well illustrated by the experience of an early fellow of the Society, William Cullen (1710–1790). He moved smoothly from being Professor of Medicine at Glasgow University to being Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Edinburgh University. When the Society was formed, it was sufficient to divide it into a literary class with 93 members, and a physical class with 72 members. The literary class included men like the economist Adam Smith and the physical class, Joseph Black, James Hutton of the "theory of the earth" fame, James Watt the engineer, and James Gregory the mathematician. The lectures and discussions of the Society were published in the Society's in-house publications, the Transactions and Proceedings.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-1469-8_16

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