Barton Ruth. The X Club: Power and Authority in Victorian Science

University of Chicago Press, 2019. — 259 p.In late 1864, after a decade of occasional collaboration, six ambitious professionals and three wealthy amateurs formed themselves into a private dining club which became known as the X Club. The members of this club were young, talented, ambitious, and frustrated at the difficulty of obtaining salaried positions in science. They were also frustrated at the power of religious orthodoxy in scientific and educational institutions and wanted to guide the development of science, the church, and public opinion in a more secular and radical direction. They announced the independent authority of science and, therefore, of scientists, defining the values and methods of science in contradistinction to both Anglican orthodoxy and industrial technology.In this book Ruth Barton charts the successes and limitations of the X Club in relation to the social and intellectual trends of the time, and by contrasting it to groups and movements to which it was an alternative. She argues that whilst groups like the X Club, whose members were active in the defence of Darwin and in extending evolutionary thinking to ethnology and anthropology, often conjure up cultural stereotypes of heroic scientists battling against powerful and dogmatic orthodoxy, the reality was not always so simple. In fact Barton counters these stereotypes by showing how the X Club was representative of a larger naturalistic and pre-Darwinian movement, and by identifying conflicts and varying emphases within the naturalistic movement.In telling the story of this remarkable secret dining club, this book also gives life to the social changes of the Victorian period and the politics of the intellectual controversies, and will appeal to those with an interest in Victorian science, literature and religion.