******
Historical Research Paper Presented to
National Stereoscopic Association
Stereo Seminar Photo Show ‘80
August 15, 1980
*****
Presented by
Dr. William Allen Zulker, Wayne, PA
How fortunate it is to have the ability to see with both eyes. In itself, sight is an adequate blessing; but how much more meaningful it is to have depth perception. Monocular vision alone fails to capture the reality or-life-likeness of an object or a scene.
1

It is not surprising then that the advent of stereoscopy created an immediate boon to photography in its infant years. The development of stereography, however, was dependent not only upon the invention of new “double lens” camera, but also upon the invention of a viewing machine, called a stereoscope. Though Professor Charles Wheatstone is considered the inventor of the stereoscope, it was Sir David Brewster who made it so practical that the “British Journal of Photography” reported in 1861 that “everyone now has a stereoscope and a collection, more or less extensive, of stereographs of interesting objects and scenes.” Through the use of lens rather than reflecting mirrors,
Brewster’s invention of the lenticular stereoscope brought a new three-dimensional experience to the viewer of photographs of famous and exotic places around the world. When Brewster presented Queen
Victoria with a special viewer and set of stereographs at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, she was captivated by it and it became an instant success.
For one who has come to appreciate the genius of Sir David Brewster, the significance of his scientific contributions and the nature of the man himself, it is disturbing to read critical comments such as those made by John Jones in his 1976 book The Wonders of the Stereoscope. Jones accuses Brewster of an obsession to rob Charles Wheatstone of the credit for inventing the first stereoscope. But we must remember that Brewster had already been denied the credit for inventing the first Kaleidoscope in 1819, due a quirk in the patent laws. He certainly felt, and correctly so, that he deserved the credit for making the stereoscope practical enough for common usage. Jones failed to include the contents of a letter written by Brewster on June 27, 1861 to the editor of “Times” in which he set the record straight. “Sir, I think it right to state to you that I am not the discoverer of the Stereoscope. I am only the inventor of the Lenticular Stereoscope now in universal use.” Of course, we know today that the principle of binocular vision had been the subject of Euclid, the mathematician; Galen, the physician; Baptista Porta who was studying optics in 1593; Leonardo da Vinci, the artist, and others long before either
Wheatstone or Brewster. But the uniting of two dissimilar pictures by lenses was unquestionably the invention of Brewster and for almost a hundred fifty years now the lenticular stereoscope is still in use.
Sir David Brewster is to be identified with the great and noble giants of the 19 th Century. His personal correspondence reports his association with people such as Thomas Carlyle, Victor Hugo,
Charlotte Bronte, Peter Roget, The Duke of Wellington, The Duke of York, Disraeli, Harriet Beecher
Stowe of New England, members of the British Parliament and Prince Albert. He never ceased to be impressed however, with the company he was keeping and referred to them as “lions both home and abroad.”
Sir David Brewster was one of the most outstanding scientists of his day, knighted by King
William IV in 1831. This is of particular importance when one notes that no scientist had been knighted prior to 1830. Brewster, sometimes described as Natural Philosopher, Scottish Physicist and Inventor, was also a prolific writer. He was the editor of the Edinburgh Encyclopedia and frequently contributed articles to its pages. He founded the Edinburgh Philosophic Journal, wrote a paper in nearly every issue of the North British Review, for more than twenty years, and authored The Martyrs of Science, and a Life of Sir Isaac Newton.
2

Born in Canongate, Jedburgh, Scotland on December 10, 1781, Brewster was the son of a stern father, the master of the Grammar School. His mother died when he was but nine years of age. He had one sister and four brothers, who were all noted for their intelligence. David was interested in the ministry and entered the University at the age of twelve. He received the degree of Master and Arts from Edinburgh when he was but nineteen and was attracted to the observatory and the science of optics. His reputation as a scientific investigator grew rapidly. He received the Honorary Degree of
Doctor of Laws (L.L.D.) from the University of Aberdeen, a Master of Arts from Cambridge, was elected a member of the distinguished Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London.
His interest and fascination with mathematics and astronomy led him to the manufacture of a telescope when he was only ten years old. His first paper to the Royal Society of London in 1813 was titled “Some Properties of Light.” Few people realize that Brewster invented the Kaleidoscope and published a treatise on it in 1819.
In 1817, he began editing the Edinburgh Magazine which was devoted to the publication of articles on scientific investigations, discoveries and inventions. The number of articles written by
Brewster himself was quite remarkable in view of the time and skill necessary to make such observations and investigations. More than 315 such papers bear his authorship. Included among his many articles are the following titles:
“On the Periodical Colours Produced by Grooved Surfaces”
“The Optical Conditions of the Diamond”
“On the Dark Lines of the Solar Spectrum”
Another Pamphlet was entitled,
“Scientific Education in our Schools.”
The scope of his inquires covered such diverse areas as ventriloquism, spirit rapping, séances and the study of colour-blindness. One paper “On the Cause and Cure of Cataracts” resulted in his receiving an Honorary Doctor of Medicine Degree from the University of Berlin in 1860 for his services to the sciences auxiliary to Medicine.
As we know today, travel by sea was a common mode of transportation throughout the 19 th
Century. His interest in optics led Brewster to invent a new system for navigational lighthouses which was presented to the Engineer of the Scottish Lighthouse Board in 1820. His article describing the use of polyzonal lenses rather than the widely-used reflections of plated copper was published in The
Encyclopedia in 1812 and sent to the French Institute of Science in 1815. Ten years later, Augustin
Fresnel independently invented a similar built-up lens apparatus for lighthouse which was immediately adopted by the French Lighthouse Board. This Dioptric method was so effective in increasing the illumination distance of the Lighthouse that many lives were being saved at sea. France, Germany,
3

Russia and Holland all used this system and Fresnel was credited with the invention which Brewster had introduced a decade earlier but which had not been adopted by the British.
In 1831, at the age of fifty, Brewster was knighted by King William IV whose reign was succeeded by Queen Victoria, his niece. There is an interesting angle to his Knighthood told by one writer who said that Brewster was expected to pay 109 pounds for the privilege of Knighthood but that he never did so. He was willing to accept the honor, but thought it no honor if it had to be purchased.
Numerous additional honors were bestowed upon him. He received the Hanoverian Order of the
Guelph, the French Legion of Honor, was elected to the French Institute of Science as one of only six foreigners permitted membership, became a charter member of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, received an annual grant of 200 pounds from the British Government in support of his scientific research, received a medal from the Photographic Society of Paris and was appointed by the Crown as Principal of the United College of St. Salvator and St. Lawrence in the
University of St. Andrews. He held that post for twenty years until he was appointed to the prestigious post of Principal of Edinburgh University at the age of 79 where he served until his death at the age of
86.
His desire to study the chemistry of light began in his child-hood as he observed a dilapidated pane of glass in his father’s upper window. Refracted light was a mystery that attracted his inquiring mind. It also led him into the area of Photography. During one meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science he was the guest of Mr. Henry Fox Talbot who was engaged in photographic experiments. Mr. Talbot had developed the process of “calotype” or “Talbot-type” which allowed photographers to use paper for their pictures rather than the silver-plated copper sheets of the
Daguerreo type. Brewster sensed the necessity for an instrument that would permit the viewing of the picture in a practical fashion. The Wheatstone stereoscope was not adequate.
The significance of Brewster’s lenticular stereoscope is in solving the dilemma described in the
“Scientific American” on June 2, 1894 as follows:
“Vision is caught between two equally defective alternatives; either each eye is directed toward the center of each of the (two) images and then what we see is flat, because the optical axes being parallel, distinctiveness exists only in very remote objects, or, we observe distinctness, but then the two eyes are directed upon a single one of two photographs.”
The solution was discovered by Brewster:
“Refraction stereoscope permits us to solve the problem upon interposing between the eyes and the photograph, two prisms whose edges are turned toward each other. We shall succeed, upon properly selecting their angles in having the virtual superposition of the different points of the two images. Three images are seen (one in relief and two flat) unless we place an opaque partition limiting the field of each eye.”
Moreover, Brewster’s stereoscope solved the problem of inadequate and misdirected light. The first stereographs were Daguerreo types. The dark surface, acting like a mirror reflected the person who
4

was viewing it making it difficult to see the picture. Brewster’s box viewer with a flap on the side allowed sufficient light to indirectly fall on the picture which was then viewed through the double lens.
To those of us interested in Stereoscopy it would seem inexcusable that any reference to the accomplishment of Sir David Brewster would only lightly mention his invention of the first lenticular stereoscope. Yet in a lengthy four-page article on his life in the Dictionary of National Biography there is simply this statement, “He divided with Wheatstone the merit of introducing the stereoscope, the lenticular instrument belonging to Brewster.” However, the rest of the article reveals the extent of his significance in the Scientific World.
My interest in Brewster came unexpectedly as I was researching stereography at the Franklin
Institute of Science in Philadelphia. Due to a strange set of circumstances, the clerk in the research library was prevented from locating the books I had selected from the card catalog. I was, therefore, given direct access to the stacks. Upon entering the low ceilinged dark and lonely upper floors of the stack rooms my heart leaped with excitement as I began to handle the dusty gems of photographic journals of the 1850’s, 60’s and 70’s. I forgot lunch, forgot the penetrating winter cold of the unheated room, forgot that there was no desk nor chair and excitedly “let my fingers do the walking” through The
British Journal of Photography, Scovill’s Photographic Series, The American Annual of Photography and
Photographic Series, The Photographic Art Journal” of 1851 and others.
The Archivist at the Institute had inquired regarding my specific interest. My previous visits and prior reading had not resulted in such specifics. But suddenly my eye caught a reference to a book authored by Sir David Brewster entitled, More Worlds than One – The Creed of the Philosopher and the
Hope of the Christian. Was this “our” Brewster? Wondering what he would say about the Christian I hurriedly went searching for the book and found it on the bottom shelf of the most remote stack on the fifth floor. I couldn’t believe it. There I was actually holding in my hand his book written in 1854; but I was all alone. There was no one with whom I could share my delight.
Beginning to skip through the pages, I found that Brewster had entered into the debate as to whether there was life on planets other than Earth. He was optimistic. That was his nature, always expecting the unusual and unbelievable. Whether his search would find life, was not important; to know the findings of that search was. Brewster criticized both infidels and Christians whose minds were closed to truth wherever it may be found. He wrote:
“Christians, timid and ill-informed have at different periods refused to accept certain results of science, which instead of being adverse to their faith, have been its best auxiliaries; and infidel writers, taking advantage of this weakness have vainly arrayed the discoveries and influences of astronomy against the fundamental doctrines of Scripture.”
He called this an unseemly controversy.
Twentieth Century scientific discoveries have advanced learning and knowledge at such an amazing speed that it is amusing to realize how limited knowledge was in the 1850’s. As the debate about life on other planets continued, Brewster kept the possibility open. Neither science nor religion
5

had conclusive evidence to the contrary. He recognized that the invention of the microscope and the telescope enabled the discovery of new worlds of reality both near and far. He noted:
“The microscope showed that there had been close to us, inhabiting minute crevices and crannies, peopling the leaves and plants and the bodies of other animals, animalcules of minuteness hitherto un-guessed and of a structure hitherto unknown, who had been always sharers with us in God’s preserving care.”
But some theologians, like some scientists, had also concluded that life did not exist on other planets. Their reasoning hypothesized that life would also include sin; sin necessitated divine redemption; but God had only one Son, who became an earthly being. How then could he become the
Savior for any inhabitants of other planets? Would God have to repeat the life, death and resurrection process in each new world? Brewster’s response was simply stated in an explanation of the expansive nature of Christ’s redemptive love. He said,
“If the rays, then of the Sun of Righteousness, with healing on His wings, could have shot across the void between our European and American worlds, thus physically dissevered, may not all the planets, the worlds, made by the Savior himself, formed out of the same material elements and basking under the same beneficient sun, be equal participators in His heavenly gift?”
As I continued to read I wondered how this highly honored and widely respected scientist had come to these theological conclusions. What influence of the Christian community had he experienced?
My research pressed on to other libraries and ultimately to the American Philosophical Library founded by Benjamin Franklin. There I found a rare book titled The Home Life of Sir David Brewster written by his daughter Mrs. Gordon, and published in Edinburgh in 1870, just two years after the death of Brewster.
Mrs. Gordon recalled the most interesting details of her father’s life. With my own photocopy of the book I have enjoyed many hours of a journey into the past with this distinguished “Man of Science and
Man of Faith.”
The town where he lived, Jedburgh, is on the border between Scotland and England. The castle ruins of the Scottish Kings still stand high on a hill overlooking David’s homestead. Queen Mary Stuart kept court at Jedburgh and Robert Burns, the poet, wrote about the river Jed and its crystal clear waters.
Being nurtured in the home of a schoolmaster, young David had an inquisitive interest and an imaginative mind. Several local residents, men of character, intelligence and learning had strong influence upon the young boy. These included Mr. John Ainslie, a land-surveyor, Mr. George Forrest, an inventor and gun-maker, Mr. Hope, inventor of a new style printing press and Mr. Gibson, a watchmaker who also made barometers and telescopes. The local minister, Dr. Somerville, was an author and historian and friend of David’s. The most influential person in his life however, was Mr. James Veitch, an inventor, constructor of telescopes and watches, and a man Mrs. Gordon describes as “genius.”
Frequently, the inventor and David would share in the testing of the telescopes, both day and night, as they viewed the glories of the sky and the night. Mr. Veitch, a God-fearing Scotsman often discussed theology with David and warned him that “ye hae a cunning adversary, mind that; Satan’s no a
‘prentice hand”! When David went to the University of Edinburgh at the age of 12 he kept up an active
6

correspondence with Mr. Veitch on a variety of subjects including optics, telescopes, philosophical machines, the electric machine and religion. Mrs. Gordon refers to one series of seventy-two letters passing between the two friends. One refers to a sermon delivered in the Divinity Hall that was such a poor discourse that David commented, “sermons that please the old wives of Jedburgh do not answer when preached before judges.” This experience may have been remembered when David was contemplating his future as a minister and may have caused him considerable anxiety as to the effectiveness of his sermons.
His father, a strong supporter of the Church of Scotland, had encouraged each of his four sons to become ministers. James, George and Patrick, all gifted, followed this course. But David, after completing divinity courses, and having been licensed to preach by the Presbytery, developed tension and fainting spells whenever he stepped into the pulpit. His daughter says that though he preached frequently and though his ministrations were always pleasant, profitable to others and well-accepted,
“they were a source of great pain and discomfort to him.” His “nervous faintness” occurred only during public appearances. He even strongly objected to being asked to say grace at any public event. The outcome was that Brewster decided to teach rather than preach and spent the rest of his life in the laboratory and classroom rather than the pulpit.
He did not however, abandon his religious beliefs nor see any conflict in being both a scientist and a Christian. He said “truth secular cannot be separated from truth divine.” He called for an
“intellectual priesthood to develop the glorious truths which time and space embosom.” He said,
“If the God of Love is most appropriately worshipped in the Christian Temple, the God of Nature may be equally honored in the Temple of Science. Even from its lofty minarets the philosopher may summon the faithful to prayer; and the priest and the sage may exchange altars without the compromise of faith or of knowledge.”
He had no difficulty in believing the Bible. Professor Balfour, the eminent botanist and one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society of Edinburgh wrote:
“We were glad to have Sir David Brewster at the meeting of the British Association, as a noble advocate of Bible truth in opposition to the skepticism of the men of science of the present day. To see a philosopher like him, of world-wide reputation, vindicating the inspiration of God’s word and humbly receiving the truth in the Love of it, was most encouraging….”
Brewster’s religion permeated his thinking and writing. He drew religious morals from his subject matter even when writing about the diamonds he was studying. The diamond held a strange fascination for him, not because of its worth, but because of its remarkable optical structure. His invention of the Lithoscope permitted the testing and examination of precious stones with their fluids, pressure cavities and crystals. In 1852 Prince Albert, Consort of the Queen, called Brewster to
Buckingham Palace to help determine the best manner to recut the famous Kohinor Diamond which then belonged to Queen Victoria. Brewster concluded that it was not the real Mountain of Light diamond that had belonged to the Great Mogul of India. His had weighted 280 carats and was in different form than the Queen’s diamond that weighed 184 carats. At the conclusion of one of his
7

articles on diamonds he commented that even “diamonds like every organism of this world bear the impress of decay…let us covet then, the virgin gold and the pure silver of truth and justice, and estimate at their real value the glittering qualities and the dazzling possessions which bear so high a value in this world but which have none in the next.”
His religious convictions caused him to strongly oppose war which he viewed as “legalized slaughter” and “the child of barbarism.” He considered it a breach of the Old Testament commandment and of the spirit of the New Testament. In 1851 he was elected President of the Peace Congress, only after being assured he could read the President’s address rather than make a speech before the 4,000 people in attendance in London at the Great Exhibition.
With eloquence he commanded their attention saying,
“it is inexplicable that war should exist where Christianity has for nearly 2000 years been shedding its gentle light….If the sure word of prophecy has told us that the time must come when men shall learn the art of war no more, it is doubtless our duty, and it shall be our work, to hasten its fulfillment, and upon the anvil of Christian truth, and with the brawny arm of indignant reason, to beat the sword into the ploughshare, and the spear into the pruning-hook.”
Sir David Brewster was an active participant in the life of the Church of Scotland. He identified with the Evangelical section of the church that had opposed lay patronage. Too many unqualified, unwelcome and unfit pastors had been allowed to serve local parishes in opposition to the desires of the parishioners. A crises followed “the ten years conflict” and on May 18, 1843, 474 Scottish ministers protesting “interference with conscience,” seceded from the established church and formed the Free
Church of Scotland. David Brewster, an ordained elder in the church signed the “Act of Protest” and walked out with them. It was a courageous step for him in that he was almost ejected from his chair as
Principal of St. Andrews University by the Presbytery, for his so-called heretical position. It is apparent however, that Brewster was a man of deep conviction which he held even in the threat of personal sacrifice. Though he was possessed with self-confidence, it was tempered with unmistakable humility.
Once while reading the memoir of a scientific medical physician who had later become a Christian,
Brewster’s eyes fell upon these words, “notwithstanding his high talents and great proficiency in professional and scientific knowledge…the pride of intellect was cast at the foot of the cross of Christ.”
Brewster exclaimed, “That disgusts me! A merit for a man to bow his intellect to the Cross! Why, what can the highest intellect on earth do but bow to God’s word and God’s mind thankfully.”
How typical of his own life. He did not know the meaning of retirement but only service. He was still diligently at work in his seventies and eighties fulfilling the responsibilities of his Principalship at the
University of Edinburgh, conducting extensive correspondence and attending various scientific association meetings where he was always one of the presenters of a scientific paper. Eighty-six years of search, inquiry, investigation, invention, discovery, and service to all humanity and to God. Did it all end at death? His daughter asked a similar question in this verse.
“Under the skies
8

Where the hosts of heaven in glory rise,
They shine on the couch where the sage is laid,
To his first nights sleep in the cloistere’d shade.
Doth he walk “astonished” their lands of light?
Hath he found a hest for his spirit’s might?
Hath he lifted a beacon in space unknown?
Hath he solved the hues of the prism’d throne?
Hath he met with his peers of the elder days?
Hath he learned from the seraphs new meed for praise?
We see not! We see not! But this we know,
He hath bowed his head with its honors low!
“Not mine! Not mine! Is its whisper met,
As he casts his crown at his Savior’s feet.”
Sir David Brewster, who spent his life in the study of optics and light with its many applications to the Kaleidoscope, the stereoscope, navigational lighthouses and its effect on the beauty of the diamond and other precious stones lies buried in the Melrose Cathedral burying ground and the stone that marks his grave mutely heralds this inscription, “The Lord is My Light,” Psalm 27:1.
There lies “A Man of Science and a Man of Faith.”
********
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brewster, David. More Worlds than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian.
Chatto and Windus, Picadilly, London 1854.
Brewster, David. The Stereoscope, Its History, Theory and Construction. 235 pp. john C. Hotten, London,
1870
British Journal of Photography. Vol XI, Henry Greenwood, London 1864.
Darrah, William C. Stereo Views: A History of Stereographs in America and their Collection. 255 pp. W.C.
Darrah, Gettysburg, PA 1964.
Dictionary of National Biography. Vol II. Oxford University Press, London, 1921-22, 1937-38, 1949-50.
9

Gordon, Margaret Maria. The Home Life of Sir David Brewster. 482 pp. Edmonston and Douglas,
Edinburgh, 1870.
Jones, John. Wonders of the Stereoscope. 2 vols. 126 pp. illus. and 48 reproductions. Alfred A. Knopf,
New York, 1976.
National Union Catalog. Pre-1956 Imprints.
“The Scientific American.” June 1894.
10