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Bonnet and Buffon: Theories of generation and the problem of species

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References

  1. See Jacques Roger, Les Sciences de la vie dans la pensée française du XVIII e siècle (Paris, Armand Colin, 1963), p. 325. Roger argues that “preformation” should be reserved for those theories in which a miniature embryo is actually formed by the parent. “Pre-existing germs” are miniatures supposedly created by God at the beginning of the universe.

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  2. See F. J. Cole, Early Theories of Sexual Generation (New York, Oxford University Press, 1930), p. 103.

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  3. See, for example, Contemplation de la nature, pt. 7, chap. 9. Oeuvres d'histoire naturelle et de philosophie de Ch. Bonnet (Neuchatel, 1779), 8, p. 60.

  4. Considérations sur les corps organisés, sect. XXVII, Oeuvres, 5, p. 100, and Contemplation, pt. 7, chap. 10, Oeuvres, 8, pp. 75–76.

  5. See Considérations, sect. III, Oeuvres, 5, p. 84.

  6. Ibid., sect. LXXXI, p. 157. There are several similar changes of opinion with the Considérations. See also Contemplation, pt. 7, chap. 9, Oeuvres, 8, pp. 62–63, where Bonnet maintains only that we do not know the limit to which matter is divisible.

  7. Considérations, sect. LXXXII, Oeuvres, 5, pp. 157–160.

  8. Ibid., sect. LXXXVI, p. 165.

  9. The Traité d'insectologie, Bonnet's first important work, included a large diagram of the chain. See also Considérations, sect. CCXI, Oeuvres, 5, pp. 375–378, and the early chapters of the Contemplation.

  10. E.g. Contemplation, pt. 2, chap. 10, Oeuvres, 7, p. 52.

  11. Considérations, sect. LXV, Oeuvres, 5, p. 134.

  12. Ibid., sect. LXV, 6, pp. 392–393. The translations in this paper are by the author, except where another source is indicated.

  13. In particular he attempted to explain the transmission of monstrous features, see ibid., sect. XXXIV, 5, pp. 104–105, and sect. CCCXXVII, 6, pp. 387–390. It was fairly easy to explain the suppression of one part of the germ, such as a finger or toe, but much more difficult to account for polydactyly. The semen could not be supposed to be capable of creating a new part without upsetting the whole philosophy of the pre-existence theory. At one point (Contemplation, pt. 7, chap. 12, Oeuvres, 8, p. 99) Bonnet did propose this type of explanation, but was clearly unhappy with it, recognizing the difficulty of reconciling this phenomena with his theory.

  14. Considérations, sect. CXXXIX, Oeuvres, 5, p. 230.

  15. Ibid., sect. CXL, 5, pp. 231–232.

  16. Buffon, Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, 2 (Paris, 1749), pp. 32–33.

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  17. The animalcules of the male semen were supposed to be mere secondary productions, created out of organic particles frustrated in their attempt to form a proper embryo.

  18. Histoire naturelle, 2, p. 292. There were good reasons for Buffon to adopt this view. The embryo must originate from a comparatively small amount of seminal matter, and a purely mechanical theory of generation was not suited to the contruction of a hypothetical entity which would be programmed to develop into the complete organism over a period of time. Maupertuis at first sight seems to have broken this conceptual barrier, since he supported Harvey's epigenetic observations in his Venus physique as a means of opposing the pre-existence theory; see chap. 7 of the Venus physique, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Oeuvres (Lyon, 1768, reprint Hildesheim, Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1965), 2, pp. 36–44. But Maupertuis nowhere made it clear how his own theory would account for the gradual production of the parts of the embryo, and it is significant that his second statement of his theory (the Système de la nature, published in 1751, after the appearance of Buffon's theory) made no reference to Harvey's observations, even though Maupertuis had abandoned his rigidly mechanistic approach.

  19. The term “epigenesis” may be found used in this sense in Albrecht von Haller's Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani (Lausanne and Berne, 1757–1766), 8, pp. 107–108, and in John Turberville Needham's notes to Lazzaro Spallanzani's Nouvelles recherches sur les decouvertes microscopiques et la generation des corps organises (London and Paris, 1769), 1, p. 145.

  20. Roger, for instance, adopts it throughout his Sciences de la vie dans la pensée française.

  21. Histoire naturelle, 2, pp. 45–46.

  22. See, for instance, Les Epoques de la nature (Histoire naturelle, supp. vol. 5 (Paris, 1778)) p. 186. This work is reprinted, with an introduction by Jacques Roger, Mémoires du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, new ser. [ser. C], vol. X (Paris, 1962); see p. 158.

  23. Histoire naturelle, 2, pp. 41–53.

  24. Ibid., pp. 57–58.

  25. Ibid., p. 44.

  26. Considérations, sect. XCI, Oeuvres, 5, p. 170.

  27. Histoire naturelle, 2, p. 62.

  28. Ibid., pp. 46–48.

  29. Histoire naturelle, 2, pp. 45–46. The translation is derived from the Natural History, General and Particular of the Count de Buffon, trans. William Smellie, 2nd ed. (London, 1785), 2, pp. 42–43.

  30. E.g. Arthur O. Lovejoy, “Buffon and the Problem of Species” in Bentley Glass et al. (eds.) Forerunners of Darwin, 1745–1859 (Baltimore, the Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), pp. 84–113, and J. S. Wilkie, “The Idea of Evolution in the Writings of Buffon,” Ann. Sci., 12 (1956), pp. 48–62, 212–227, and 255–266. The most recent study is by Paul L. Farber, “Buffon and the Concept of Species,” J. Hist. Biol., 5 (1972), 259–284, a paper which stresses the importance of the internal mold in relationship to this topic.

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  31. Histoire naturelle, 2, p. 426, Natural History, trans. Smellie, 2, 352.

  32. Histoire naturelle, 4 (Paris, 1753), pp. 215–216. Natural History, trans. Smellie, 3, p. 344–345. I have modified Smellie's translation to reintroduce the term “internal mold” (moule intérieure) which is present in the original.

  33. Histoire naturelle, 13 (Paris, 1765), p. ix.

  34. Ibid., p.i.

  35. Les Epoques de la nature, Histoire naturelle, supp. vol. 5, pp. 26–27; ed. Roger p. 17.

  36. See Jacques Roger, Les Sciences de la vie dans la pensée française du XVIII 6 siècle (Paris, Armand Colin, 1963), pp. 578–581. Roger argues that “preformation” should be reserved for those theories in which a miniature embryo is actually formed by the parent. “Pre-existing germs” are miniatures supposedly created by God at the beginning of the universe.

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  37. Histoire naturelle, supp. vol. 2 (Paris, 1775), p. 509.

  38. For a detailed analysis of Buffon's attitude to the species question, see the articles by Lovejoy and Wilkie cited above and also Jacques Roger, Les Sciences de la vie dans la pensée française du XVIII 6 siècle (Paris, Armand Colin, 1963), pp. 558–581.

  39. See, for example, the discussion of the mule, whose sterility Buffon was now prepared to deny, Histoire naturelle, 14 (Paris, 1766), p. 366.

  40. P. Ostoya, Les Theories de l'évolution (Paris: Payot, 1951), pp. 54–55, and Wilkie, “The Idea of Evolution in the Writings of Buffon,” pp. 220–225.

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  41. Histoire naturelle, supp. vol. 4 (Paris, 1777), pp. 357–364.

  42. See John Turberville Needham, “A Summary of Some Late Observations upon the Generation, Composition and Decomposition of Animal and Vegetable Substances,” Phil. Trans., 45 (1748), pp. 615–666, esp. pp. 637–638.

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  43. See Denis Diderot, Lettre sur les aveugles, à l'usage de ceux qui voient, Oeuvres complètes, ed. J. Assezat (Paris, 1875–1877), 1, p. 309.

  44. Histoire naturelle, supp. vol. 4, p. 365.

  45. Les Epoques de la nature, Histoire naturelle, supp. vol. 5, p. 99; ed. Roger, p. 78.

  46. Ibid., p. 168; ed. Roger, p. 142.

  47. Ibid., pp. 185–186; ed. Roger, pp. 157–158.

  48. See, for instance, J. Piveteau, “La Pensée religieuse de Buffon,” in Roger Heim (ed.), Buffon (Paris: Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, 1952), pp. 125–133; Roger, Les Sciences de la vie dans la pensée française, pp. 581–582; and the introduction to Roger's edition of Les Epoques de la nature, pp. xciv-cxi.

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  49. See, for instance, Histoire naturelle, 4, p. 95, where Buffon openly states his preference for a “distant” God who governs only through laws.

  50. Bonnet's psychology was proposed in his Essai de psychologie of 1754 and his Essai analytique sur les faculties de l'âme of 1760; for a description of his ideas, see Raymond Savioz, La Philosophie de Charles Bonnet de Genève (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 1948), pp. 163–277.

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  51. See Contemplation de la nature, pt. 4, chap. 13, Oeuvres, 7, pp. 207–212.

  52. Palingénésie philosophique, ou idées sur l'état passé et sur l'état futur des êtres vivans, pt. 1, chap. 1, Oeuvers, 15, p. 177.

  53. See Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, a Study of the History of an Idea (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1936), lecture IX.

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  54. Palingénésie, pt. 3, chap. 3, Oeuvres, 15, p. 219.

  55. Ibid., pt. 4, chap. 1, p. 235.

  56. Ibid., pt. 6, chap. 5, pp. 275–276.

  57. Ibid., pt. 6, pp. 254–284.

  58. See C. O. Whitman, “The Palingenesia and the Germ Doctrine of Bonnet” in Biological Lectures, Woods Hole, 1894 (Boston, 1895), pp. 241–272. Whitman's attitude is described with approval by Bentley Glass in “Heredity and Variation in the Eighteenth Century Concept of the Species,” in Forerunners of Darwin, pp. 144–172; see pp. 164–165. Whitman's antipathy toward Bonnet's work may have been the product of a desire to emphasize the difference between that system and the Darwinian version of evolution. I would suggest, however, that there is little to be gained by denying Bonnet's interest in a dynamic, even a progressive, world-view simply because he supposed the changes to be predesigned by God.

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  1. School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

    Peter J. Bowler

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Bowler, P.J. Bonnet and Buffon: Theories of generation and the problem of species. J Hist Biol 6, 259–281 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00127610

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