80-576: The Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi ( French: [istwaʁ natyʁɛl] ; English: Natural History, General and Particular, with a Description of the King's Cabinet ) is an encyclopaedic collection of 36 large (quarto) volumes written between 1749–1804, initially by the Comte de Buffon , and continued in eight more volumes after his death by his colleagues, led by Bernard Germain de Lacépède . The books cover what
160-566: A count . He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1782. Buffon died in Paris in 1788. He was buried in a chapel adjacent to the church of Sainte-Urse Montbard; during the French Revolution , his tomb was broken into and the lead that covered the coffin was ransacked to produce bullets. His son, George-Louie-Marie Buffon (often called Buffonet)
240-550: A romantic novel than a dry scientific treatise". The evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr comments that "In this monumental and fascinating Histoire naturelle , Buffon dealt in a stimulating manner with almost all the problems that would subsequently be raised by evolutionists. Written in a brilliant style, this work was read in French or in one of the numerous translations by every educated person in Europe". Mayr argued that "virtually all
320-462: A European of his era, Buffon did not believe that Europe was the cradle of human civilization. Instead he stated that Japanese and Chinese culture were “of a very ancient date,” and that Europe “only much later received the light from the East…it is thus in the northern countries of Asia that the stem of human knowledge grew." Buffon thought that skin color could change in a single lifetime, depending on
400-649: A complicated publication history. Early translations were necessarily only of the earlier volumes. Given the complexity, all catalogue dates other than of single volumes should be taken as approximate. R. Griffith published an early translation of the volume on The Horse in London in 1762. T. Bell published a translation of the first six volumes in London between 1775 and 1776. William Creech published an edition in Edinburgh between 1780 and 1785. T. Cadell and W. Davies published another edition in London in 1812. An abridged edition
480-416: A concept later known as Buffon's Law. This is considered to be the first principle of biogeography . He made the suggestion that species may have both "improved" and "degenerated" after dispersing from a center of creation. In volume 14 he argued that all the world's quadrupeds had developed from an original set of just thirty-eight quadrupeds. On this basis, he is sometimes considered a " transformist " and
560-486: A distinctly mixed reception in the eighteenth century. Wealthy homes in both England and France purchased copies, and the first edition was sold out within six weeks. But Buffon was criticised by some priests for suggesting (in the essay Les Epoques de Nature , Volume XXXIV) that the Earth was more than 6,000 years old and that mountains had arisen in geological time. Buffon cites as evidence that fossil sea-shells had been found at
640-412: A fixed division. This brought to his conceptualization on distinguishing race in a broad and narrow sense; in a broad sense, race means larger groups of people who inhabit a huge region known as a continent; while in a narrow sense, it denotes equivalently with "nation". With this, he implies his ambivalence in defining race by looking at specific traits to differenciate them but at the same time he rejects
720-466: A good performer on the piano and organ, he acquired considerable mastery of composition, two of his operas (which were never published) meeting with the high approval of Gluck ; in 1781–1785 he also brought out in two volumes his Poétique de la musique . Meantime he wrote two treatises, Essai sur l'électricité (1781) and Physique générale et particulière (1782–1784), which gained him the friendship of Buffon, who in 1785 appointed him subdemonstrator in
800-548: A precursor of Darwin . He also asserted that climate change may have facilitated the worldwide spread of species from their centers of origin. Still, interpreting his ideas on the subject is not simple, for he returned to topics many times in the course of his work. Buffon originally held that “the animals common both to the old and new world are smaller in the latter,” ascribing this to environmental conditions. Upon meeting Buffon, Thomas Jefferson attempted “to convince him of his error,” noting that “the reindeer could walk under
880-516: A second volume on snakes, published during the French Revolution . Between 1798 and 1803, he brought out the volume Histoire des Poissons . Lacépède made use of the notes and collections left by Philibert Commerson (1727–1773). He wrote Histoire des Cétacés which was printed in 1804. At that point, the Histoire Naturelle , by Buffon and Lacépède, thus contained 44 quarto volumes forming the definitive edition. Another edition in quarto format
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#1732852153262960-466: A single family", and later "that man and ape have a common origin", and that "the power of nature...with sufficient time, she has been able from a single being to derive all the other organized beings". Mayr notes, however, that Buffon immediately rejects the suggestion and offers three arguments against it, namely that no new species have arisen in historical times; that hybrid infertility firmly separates species; and that animals intermediate between, say,
1040-582: A source of inspiration for the painters of the Sèvres factory, giving rise to porcelain services called Buffon. The name of the different species, faithfully reproduced, is inscribed on the back of each piece. Several "Buffon services" were produced during the reign of Louis XVI; the first was intended for the Count of Artois , in 1782. Buffon's Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (1749–1788: in 36 volumes; an additional volume based on his notes appeared in 1789)
1120-431: A taxonomy based on the number of stamens or pistils in a flower, mere counting (despite Buffon's own training in mathematics) had no bearing on nature. The Paris faculty of theology, acting as the official censor, wrote to Buffon with a list of statements in the Histoire Naturelle that were contradictory to Roman Catholic Church teaching. Buffon replied that he believed firmly in the biblical account of creation, and
1200-520: A theory of reproduction that ran counter to the prevailing theory of pre-existence . The early volumes were condemned by the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne. Buffon published a retraction, but he continued publishing the offending volumes without any change. In the course of his examination of the animal world, Buffon noted that different regions have distinct plants and animals despite similar environments,
1280-498: Is given as "10 lines" (2.2 cm). The wolf is illustrated standing in farmland, and as a complete skeleton standing on a stone plinth in a landscape. The account of the species occupies 32 pages including illustrations. The original edition of the Histoire Naturelle by Buffon comprised 36 volumes in quarto, divided into the following series: Histoire de la Terre et de l'Homme, Quadrupèdes, Oiseaux, Minéraux, Suppléments. Buffon edited 35 volumes in his lifetime. Soon after his death,
1360-408: Is the man himself" (" Le style c'est l'homme même "). Unfortunately for him, Buffon's reputation as a literary stylist also gave ammunition to his detractors: the mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert , for example, called him "the great phrase-monger". In 1752 Buffon married Marie-Françoise de Saint-Belin-Malain, the daughter of an impoverished noble family from Burgundy, who had been enrolled in
1440-426: The Histoire Naturelle "Buffon's major work", observing that "In addressing the history of the earth, Buffon also broke with the 'counter-factual' tradition of Descartes, and presented a secular and realist account of the origins of the earth and its life forms." In its view, the work created an "age of Buffon", defining what natural history itself was, while Buffon's "Discourse on Method" (unlike that of Descartes ) at
1520-694: The Jardin du Roi , and proposed that he continue Buffon's Histoire naturelle . This continuation was published under the titles Histoire naturelle des quadrupèdes ovipares et des serpents . Tome premier (1788) and Histoire naturelle des serpents . Tome second (1789). After the French Revolution Lacépède became a member of the Legislative Assembly , but during the Reign of Terror he left Paris, his life having become endangered by his disapproval of
1600-497: The Sorbonne , and once again he issued a retraction to avoid further problems. Buffon knew of the existence of extinct species as mammoths or European rhinos . And some of his assumptions have inspired current models, such as continental drift . Histoire naturelle, générale et particuliére , 1749–1767. Paris: Imprimerie Royale . Volumes 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 10 , 11 , 13 , 14 , 15 . Buffon believed in monogenism ,
1680-525: The University of Angers in France. At Angers in 1730 he made the acquaintance of the young English Duke of Kingston , who was on his grand tour of Europe, and traveled with him on a large and expensive entourage for a year and a half through southern France and parts of Italy. There are persistent but completely undocumented rumors from this period about duels, abductions and secret trips to England. In 1732 after
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#17328521532621760-543: The egg-laying quadrupeds , snakes , fishes and cetaceans in 8 volumes (1788–1804). Buffon was assisted in the work by Jacques-François Artur (1708–1779), Gabriel Léopold Charles Amé Bexon (1748–1785), Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton (1716–1799), Edme-Louis Daubenton (1732–1786), Jacques de Sève ( actif 1742–1788), Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741–1819), Philippe Guéneau de Montbeillard (1720–1785), Louis-Bernard Guyton-Morveau (1737–1816), Bernard Germain de Lacépède (1756–1825), François-Nicolas Martinet (1731–1800),
1840-419: The horse and the donkey that species might "transform", but initially (1753) rejected the possibility. However, in doing so he changed the definition of a species from a fixed or universal class (which could not change, by definition) to "the historical succession of ancestor and descendant linked by material connection through generation", identified by the ability to mate and produce fertile offspring. Thus
1920-533: The massacres . When the Jardin du Roi was reorganised as the Jardin des Plantes and as the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in 1793 , Lacépède was appointed to the chair allocated to the study of reptiles and fishes . In 1798, he published the first volume of Histoire naturelle des poissons , the fifth volume appearing in 1803, and in 1804 appeared his Histoire des cétacées . From this period until his death
2000-457: The quadrupeds among animals. It is accompanied by some discourses and a theory of the earth by way of introduction, and by supplements including an elegantly written account of the epochs of nature. The Suppléments cover a wide range of topics; for example, in (Suppléments IV), there is a Discours sur le style (Discourse on Style) and an Essai d'arithmétique morale (essay on Moral Arithmetic). Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton assisted Buffon on
2080-399: The theologians forced him to avoid writing some of his opinions openly. Mayr argues however that Buffon was "fully aware of the possibility of 'common descent', and was perhaps the first author ever to articulate it clearly", quoting Buffon at length, starting with "Not only the ass and the horse, but also man, the apes, the quadrupeds, and all the animals might be regarded as constituting but
2160-553: The Tour Saint-Louis, then in his library at Petit Fontenet. 36 volumes came out between 1749 and 1789, followed by 8 more after his death, thanks to Bernard Germain de Lacépède . It includes all the knowledge available in his time on the "natural sciences", a broad term that includes disciplines which today would be called material science, physics, chemistry and technology. Buffon notes the morphological similarities between men and apes, although he considered apes completely devoid of
2240-460: The ability to think, differentiating them sharply from human beings. Buffon's attention to internal anatomy made him an early comparative anatomist . "L’intérieur, dans les êtres vivants, est le fond du dessin de la nature", he wrote in his Quadrupèdes, "the interior, in living things, is the foundation of nature's design." The Histoire Naturelle , which was meant to address the whole of natural history, actually covers only minerals , birds , and
2320-441: The anatomist Jean-Claude Mertrud [ fr ] (1728–1802), Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt (1751–1812), and André Thouin (1747–1823). Each group is introduced with a general essay. This is followed by an article, sometimes of many pages, on each animal (or other item). The article on the wolf begins with the claim that it is one of the animals with a specially strong appetite for flesh; it asserts that
2400-554: The animal is naturally coarse and cowardly ( grossier et poltron ), but becoming crafty at need, and hardy by necessity, driven by hunger. The language, as in this instance, is elegant and elaborate, even "flowery and ornate". Buffon was roundly criticised by his fellow academics for writing a "purely popularizing work, empty and puffed up, with little real scientific value". The species is named in Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, German, English, Swedish, and Polish. The zoological descriptions of
2480-499: The belly of our moose.” Buffon, who was “absolutely unacquainted” with the moose, asked for a specimen. Jefferson dispatched twenty soldiers to the New Hampshire woods to find a bull moose for Buffon as proof of the "stature and majesty of American quadrupeds". According to Jefferson, the specimen “convinced Mr. Buffon. He promised in his next volume to set these things right." In Les époques de la nature (1778) Buffon discussed
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2560-435: The body, his view and mine would have been very closely similar." “Buffon asked most all of the questions that science has since been striving to answer,” the historian Otis Fellows wrote in 1970. His glory lies in what he prepared for his successors: bold and seminal views on the common characters of life’s origin, laws of geographical distribution, a geological record of the earth’s evolution, extinction of old species,
2640-526: The concept that all humanity has a single origin, and that physical differences arose from adaptation to environmental factors, including climate and diet. He speculated on the possibility that the first humans were dark-skinned Africans, but did not pinpoint the area of human origin beyond delineating it as “the most temperate climate [that] lies between the 40th and 50th degree of latitude.” This geophysical band encompasses portions of Europe, North America, North Africa, Mongolia, and China. Controversially for
2720-474: The conditions of climate and diet. Clarence Glacken suggests that "The environmental changes through human agency described by Buffon were those which were familiar and traditional in the history of Western civilization". However, Buffon also challenged Carl Linnaeus' conceptualization of the fixed division of race. In this sense, Buffon expands his perspective on monogenism that associating these dissimilar traits and features into one larger category rather than in
2800-402: The construction of ships in 1733. Soon afterward, Buffon began a long-term study, performing some of the most comprehensive tests to date on the mechanical properties of wood . Included were a series of tests to compare the properties of small specimens with those of large members. After carefully testing more than a thousand small specimens without knots or other defects, Buffon concluded that it
2880-474: The convent school run by his sister. Madame de Buffon's second child, a son born in 1764, survived childhood; she herself died in 1769. When in 1772 Buffon became seriously ill and the promise that his son (then only 8) should succeed him as director of the Jardin became clearly impracticable and was withdrawn, the King raised Buffon's estates in Burgundy to the status of a county – and thus Buffon (and his son) became
2960-529: The death of his mother and before the impending remarriage of his father, Georges left Kingston and returned to Dijon to secure his inheritance. Having added 'de Buffon' to his name while traveling with the Duke, he repurchased the village of Buffon, which his father had meanwhile sold off. With a fortune of about 80,000 livres (at the time, worth nearly 27 kilograms of gold), Buffon set himself up in Paris to pursue science, at first primarily mathematics and mechanics, and
3040-548: The fifth and final volume of l’Histoire des minéraux appeared in 1788 at the Imprimerie des Bâtiments du Roi . The seventh and final volume of Suppléments by Buffon was published posthumously in 1789 through Lacépède's hands. Lacépède continued the part of the Histoire Naturelle which dealt with animals. A few months before Buffon's death, in 1788, Lacépède published, as a continuation, the first volume of his Histoire des Reptiles , on egg-laying quadrupeds. The next year, he wrote
3120-422: The fourth edition onwards, he amended this to say that "the first author who in modern times has treated it [evolution] in a scientific spirit was Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation of species, I need not here enter on details". Buffon's work on degeneration, however, was immensely influential on later scholars but
3200-563: The game of fair-square ), introduced differential and integral calculus into probability theory ; the problem of Buffon's needle in probability theory is named after him. In 1734 he was admitted to the French Academy of Sciences . During this period he corresponded with the Swiss mathematician Gabriel Cramer . His protector Maurepas had asked the Academy of Sciences to do research on wood for
3280-495: The horse and donkey, which produce only sterile hybrids, are seen empirically not to be the same species, even though they have similar anatomy. That empirical fact leaves open the possibility of evolution. The botanist Sandra Knapp writes that "Buffon's prose was so purple that the ideas themselves are almost hidden", observing that this was also the contemporary academic opinion. She notes that some quite radical ideas are to be found in his work, but they are almost invisible, given
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3360-438: The horse and the donkey are not seen (in the fossil record ). Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon ( French: [ʒɔʁʒ lwi ləklɛʁ kɔ̃t də byfɔ̃] ; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist , mathematician , and cosmologist . He held the position of intendant (director) at the Jardin du Roi , now called the Jardin des plantes . Buffon's works influenced
3440-460: The idea of categorizing race in a specific fixed division. Therefore, because Buffon seems to favor in working on gerealization and marking the similarities rather than the difference in the race categorization. Charles Darwin wrote in his preliminary historical sketch added to the third edition of On the Origin of Species : "Passing over ... Buffon, with whose writings I am not familiar". Then, from
3520-455: The idea of evolution into the realm of science. He developed a concept of the "unity of type", a precursor of comparative anatomy . More than anyone else, he was responsible for the acceptance of a long-time scale for the history of the earth. He was one of the first to imply that you get inheritance from your parents, in a description based on similarities between elephants and mammoths. And yet, he hindered evolution by his frequent endorsement of
3600-434: The immutability of species. He provided a criterion of species, fertility among members of a species, that was thought impregnable. Buffon wrote about the concept of struggle for existence . He developed a system of heredity which was similar to Darwin's hypothesis of pangenesis . Commenting on Buffon's views, Darwin stated, "If Buffon had assumed that his organic molecules had been formed by each separate unit throughout
3680-596: The increase of his fortune. In 1732 he moved to Paris , where he made the acquaintance of Voltaire and other intellectuals. He lived in the Faubourg Saint-Germain , with Gilles-François Boulduc , first apothecary of the King, professor of chemistry at the Royal Garden of Plants , member of the Academy of Sciences . He first made his mark in the field of mathematics and, in his Sur le jeu de franc-carreau ( On
3760-422: The language they are cloaked in. She quotes Buffon's dramatic description of the lion, which along with the engraving in her view "emphasized both the lion's regal bearing and personality not only in his text but also in the illustration... A reader was left in no doubt as to the importance and character of the animal." She concludes "No wonder the cultured aristocratic public lapped it up – the text reads more like
3840-642: The latter part of his life he wrote Histoire générale physique et civile de l'Europe , published posthumously in 18 volumes, 1826. He was elected perpetual secretary of the French Academy of Sciences at the Institute of France in 1796, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1806 and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1812. Lacépède was initiated into freemasonry at 22 years old at Les Neuf Sœurs lodge in Paris, by Jérôme Lalande
3920-745: The natural history of insects taken from Swammerdam, Brookes, Goldsmith et al., with "elegant engravings on wood"; its four volumes appeared in Alnwick in 1814. German translations include those published by Joseph Georg Trassler 1784–1785; by Pauli, 1772–1829; Grund and Holle, 1750–1775; and Johann Samuel Heinsius, 1756–1782. Italian translations include those published by Fratelle Bassaglia around 1788 and Boringherieri in 1959. Per Olof Gravander translated an 1802–1803 French abridgement into Swedish, publishing it in Örebro in 1806–1807. A Russian version (The General and Particular Natural History by Count Buffon; "Всеобщая и частная естественная история графа Бюффона")
4000-571: The nearby village of Buffon and moved the family to Dijon acquiring various offices there as well as a seat in the Dijon Parlement . Georges attended the Jesuit College of Godrans in Dijon from the age of ten onwards. From 1723 to 1726 he then studied law in Dijon, the prerequisite for continuing the family tradition in civil service. In 1728 Georges left Dijon to study mathematics and medicine at
4080-438: The next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent French scientists Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier . Buffon published thirty-six quarto volumes of his Histoire Naturelle during his lifetime, with additional volumes based on his notes and further research being published in the two decades following his death. Ernst Mayr wrote that "Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in
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#17328521532624160-656: The origins of the Solar System , speculating that the planets had been created by a comet 's collision with the Sun. He also suggested that the Earth originated much earlier than 4004 BC, the date determined by Archbishop James Ussher . Basing his figures on the cooling rate of iron tested at his Laboratory the Petit Fontenet at Montbard , he calculated that the Earth was at least 75,000 years old. Once again, his ideas were condemned by
4240-521: The part he took in politics prevented him making any further contribution of importance to science. In 1799, he became a senator , in 1801 president of the senate (a role he also fulfilled in 1807–08 and 1811–13), in 1803 grand chancellor of the Legion of Honor , in 1804 minister of state, and at the Bourbon Restoration in 1819 he was created a peer of France . He died at Épinay-sur-Seine . During
4320-572: The part on anatomy. In this print format, the original work by Buffon occupied 73 volumes with the part on anatomy, or 54 volumes without the part on anatomy. The continuation by Lacépède took up 17 duodecimo volumes. A de luxe edition of Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (Birds) (1771–1786) was produced by the Imprimerie royale in 10 folio and quarto volumes, with 1008 engraved and hand-coloured plates, executed under Buffon's personal supervision by Edme-Louis Daubenton , cousin and brother-in-law of Buffon's principal collaborator. The Histoire Naturelle
4400-562: The province of Burgundy to Benjamin François Leclerc, a minor local official in charge of the salt tax and Anne-Christine Marlin, also from a family of civil servants. Georges was named after his mother's uncle (his godfather ) Georges Blaisot, the tax-farmer of the Duke of Savoy for all of Sicily . In 1714 Blaisot died childless, leaving a considerable fortune to his seven-year-old godson. Benjamin Leclerc then purchased an estate containing
4480-724: The purchase of adjoining plots of land and acquiring new botanical and zoological specimens from all over the world. Thanks to his talent as a writer, he was invited to join Paris's second great academy, the Académie Française in 1753 and then in 1768 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society . In his Discours sur le style ("Discourse on Style"), pronounced before the Académie française, he said, "Writing well consists of thinking, feeling and expressing well, of clarity of mind, soul and taste ... The style
4560-517: The quadrupeds and François-Nicolas Martinet illustrated the birds. Nearly 2000 plates adorn the work, representing animals with care given both to aesthetics and anatomical accuracy, with dreamlike and mythological settings. On minerals, Buffon collaborated with André Thouin . Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond and Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau provided sources for the mineral volumes. L’ Histoire Naturelle met immense success, almost as great as Encyclopédie by Diderot , which came out in
4640-430: The quadrupeds; Philippe Guéneau de Montbeillard worked on the birds. They were joined, from 1767, by Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond , the abbot Gabriel Bexon and Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt . The whole descriptive and anatomical part of l’Histoire des Quadrupèdes was the work of Daubenton and Jean-Claude Mertrud. Buffon attached much importance to the illustrations; Jacques de Sève illustrated
4720-439: The same period. The first three volumes of L’Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du cabinet du Roi were reprinted three times in six weeks. The encyclopaedia appeared in 36 volumes : L’Histoire Naturelle was initially printed at the Imprimerie royale in 36 volumes (1749–1789). In 1764 Buffon bought back the rights to his work. It was continued by Bernard Germain de Lacépède , who described
4800-410: The second half of the 18th century". Credited with being one of the first naturalists to recognize ecological succession , he was later forced by the theology committee at the University of Paris to recant his theories about geological history and animal evolution because they contradicted the biblical narrative of Creation. Georges Louis Leclerc (later Comte de Buffon) was born at Montbard , in
4880-417: The species by Gessner , Ray , Linnaeus , Klein and Buffon himself (" Canis ex griseo flavescens. Lupus vulgaris . Buffon. Reg. animal. pag. 235 ") are cited. The text is written as a continuous essay, without the sections on identification, distribution and behaviour that might have been expected from other natural histories. Parts concern human responses rather than the animal itself, as for example that
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#17328521532624960-492: The start of the work argued that repeated observation could lead to a greater certainty of knowledge even than "mathematical analysis of nature". Buffon also led natural history away from the natural theology of British parson-naturalists such as John Ray . He thus offered both a new methodology and an empirical style of enquiry. Buffon's position on evolution is complex; he noted in Volume 4 from Daubenton's comparative anatomy of
5040-423: The successive appearance of new species, the unity of the human race. Buffon, Œuvres , ed. S. Schmitt and C. Crémière, Paris: Gallimard, 2007. Complete works Bernard Germain de Lac%C3%A9p%C3%A8de Bernard-Germain-Étienne de La Ville-sur-Illon, comte de Lacépède or La Cépède ( French: [bɛʁnaʁ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ etjɛn də la vil syʁ‿ijɔ̃ də lasepɛd] ; 26 December 1756 – 6 October 1825)
5120-523: The tops of mountains; but the claim was seen as contradicting the biblical account in the Book of Genesis . Buffon also disagreed with Linnaeus 's system of classifying plants as described in Systema Naturae (1735). In Buffon's view, expounded in the "Premier Discours" of the Histoire Naturelle (1749), the concept of species was entirely artificial, the only real entity in nature being the individual; as for
5200-475: The well-known writers of the Enlightenment" were "Buffonians", and calls Buffon "the father of all thought in natural history in the second half of the eighteenth century". Mayr notes that Buffon was not an "evolutionist", but was certainly responsible for creating the great amount of interest in natural history in France. He agrees that Buffon's thought is hard to classify and even self-contradictory, and that
5280-404: The wolf likes human flesh, and the strongest wolves sometimes eat nothing else. Measurements may be included; in the case of the wolf, 41 separate measurements are tabulated, in pre-revolutionary French feet and inches starting with the "Length of the whole body measured in a straight line from the end of the muzzle to the anus........3 feet. 7 inches." (1.2 m); the "Length of the largest claws"
5360-591: The worshipfull master himself, who wanted a naturalist for his prestigious lodge. In 1785, Lacépède created his own lodge : "Les Frères Initiés". After the Revolution, he helped Cambacérès to rebuild a French freemasonry submitted to the Emperor, and joined "Saint-Napoléon" lodge where General Kellermann was worshipfull master. He finished his masonic life as dignitary of the Suprême Conseil de France . Lacépède
5440-603: Was a French naturalist and an active freemason . He is known for his contribution to the Comte de Buffon 's great work, the Histoire Naturelle . Lacépède was born at Agen in Guienne . His education was carefully conducted by his father, and the early perusal of Buffon 's Natural History ( Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière ) awakened his interest in that branch of study, which absorbed his chief attention. His leisure he devoted to music, in which, besides becoming
5520-523: Was able to continue printing his book, and remain in position as the leader of the 'old school', complete with his job as director of the royal botanical garden. On Buffon's death, the 19-year-old Georges Cuvier celebrated with the words "This time, the Comte de Buffon is dead and buried". Soon afterwards, the French Revolution went much further in sweeping away old attitudes to natural history, along with much else. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls
5600-508: Was an early evolutionary thinker. He argued for the transmutation of species . He believed that species change over time and may go extinct from geological cataclysms or become "metamorphosed" into new species. In his book Histoire naturelle des poissons , he wrote: "The species can undergo such a large number of modifications in its forms and qualities, that without losing its vital capacity, it may be, by its latest conformation and properties, farther removed from its original state than from
5680-913: Was brought out by The Imperial Academy of Sciences (Императорской Академией Наук) in St. Petersburg between 1789 and 1808. An abridged edition for children was published by Frederick Warne in London and Scribner, Welford and Co. c. 1870. The original edition was arranged as follows: Natural history, and description of the king's cabinet of curiosities Quadrupèdes (Quadrupeds) Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (Birds) (1770–1783) Histoire Naturelle des Minéraux (Minerals) (1783–1788) Suppléments à l’Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière (Supplements) (1774–1789) Histoire Naturelle des Quadrupèdes ovipares et des Serpents (Egg-laying Quadrupeds and Snakes) (1788–1789) Histoire Naturelle des Poissons (Fish) (1798–1803) Histoire Naturelle des Cétacés (Cetaceans) (1804) The Histoire Naturelle had
5760-497: Was guillotined on July 10, 1794. Buffon's heart was initially saved, as it was guarded by Suzanne Necker (wife of Jacques Necker ), but was later lost. Today, only Buffon's cerebellum remains, as it is kept in the base of the statue by Pajou that Louis XVI had commissioned in his honor in 1776, located at the Museum of Natural History in Paris . His Histoire naturelle was also
5840-426: Was known of the "natural sciences" at the time, including what would now be called material science , physics , chemistry and technology as well as the natural history of animals. The Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi is the work that the Comte de Buffon (1707–1788) is remembered for. He worked on it for some 50 years, initially at Montbard in his office in
5920-460: Was not possible to extrapolate to the properties of full-size timbers, and he began a series of tests on full-size structural members. In 1739 he was appointed head of the Parisian Jardin du Roi with the help of Maurepas; he held this position to the end of his life. Buffon was instrumental in transforming the Jardin du Roi into a major research center and museum. He also enlarged it, arranging
6000-574: Was originally intended to cover all three "kingdoms" of nature but the Histoire naturelle ended up being limited to the animal and mineral kingdoms, and the animals covered were only the birds and quadrupeds. "Written in a brilliant style, this work was read ... by every educated person in Europe". Those who assisted him in the production of this great work included Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton , Philibert Guéneau de Montbeillard, and Gabriel-Léopold Bexon, along with numerous artists. Buffon's Histoire naturelle
6080-524: Was overshadowed by strong moral overtones. The paradox of Buffon is that, according to Ernst Mayr : He was not an evolutionary biologist, yet he was the father of evolutionism. He was the first person to discuss a large number of evolutionary problems, problems that before Buffon had not been raised by anybody ... he brought them to the attention of the scientific world. Except for Aristotle and Darwin, no other student of organisms [whole animals and plants] has had as far-reaching an influence. He brought
6160-474: Was printed by the Imprimerie royale in 36 volumes (1774–1804). It consisted of 28 volumes by Buffon, and 8 volumes by Lacépède. The part containing anatomical articles by Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton was dropped. The supplements were merged into the relevant articles in the main volumes. The Imprimerie royale also published two editions of the Histoire Naturelle in duodecimo format (1752–1805), occupying 90 or 71 volumes, depending on whether or not they included
6240-495: Was published by Wogan, Byrne et al. in Dublin in 1791; that same year R. Morison and Son of Perth, J. and J. Fairbairn of Edinburgh and T. Kay and C. Forster of London published their edition. W. Strahan and T. Cadell published a translation with notes by the encyclopaedist William Smellie in London around 1785. Barr's Buffon in ten volumes was published in London between 1797 and 1807. W. Davidson published an abridged version including
6320-409: Was translated into languages including English, German, Swedish, Russian and Italian. Many translations, often partial (single volumes, or all volumes to a certain date), abridged, reprinted in the same translation by different printers, or with additional text (for example on insects) and new illustrations, were made at the end of the eighteenth century and the start of the nineteenth century, presenting
6400-473: Was translated into many different languages, making him one of the most widely read authors of the day, a rival to Montesquieu , Rousseau , and Voltaire . In the opening volumes of the Histoire naturelle Buffon questioned the usefulness of mathematics, criticized Carl Linnaeus 's taxonomical approach to natural history, outlined a history of the Earth with little relation to the Biblical account, and proposed
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