William Froude, John Henry Newman and scientific practice in the culture of Victorian doubt

This article explores the relationship between scientific practice and doubt in Victorian Britain. When compared to the rich historiography of Victorian science and religion, our current image of science and doubt is strikingly monolithic and limiting. Science is treated largely as a stimulus to narratives of doubt, for example, in the form of geology and evolution. This study, focused on the mathematician and mechanic William Froude and his close friend John Henry Newman, reconsiders the various levels on which doubts shaped scientific practice and informed the criteria by which knowledge of the physical and spiritual world were deemed certain and trustworthy.