Evolutionism in the Enlightenment

Greene John C. , The death of Adam. Evolution and its impact on Western thought (Iowa, 1959); Eiseley Loren , Darwin's century. Evolution and the men who discovered it (New York, 1958); Glass Bentley (eds), Forerunners of Darwin, 1745–1859 (Baltimore, 1959; reprinted 1968).

Rostand Jean , L'évolution des espèces. Histoire des idées transformistes (Paris, 1932); Guyenot Émile , Les sciences de la vie aux XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles: L'idée d'évolution (Paris, 1941); Ostoya P. , Les théories d'évolution (Paris, 1951).

Hazard Paul , European thought in the eighteenth century. From Montesquieu to Lessing (translated by May J. Lewis , Cleveland and New York, 1963); Cassirer Ernst , The philosophy of the Enlightenment (translated by Koelln Fritz C. A. Pettegrove James P. , Princeton, 1951); Gay Peter , The Enlightenment: An interpretation. The rise of modern paganism (New York, 1966); Hampson Norman , The Enlightenment (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1968).

Vartanian Aram , Diderot and Descartes, a study of scientific naturalism in the Enlightenment (Princeton, 1953); idem, “Trembley's polyp, La Mettrie and eighteenth century French materialism”, Journal of the history of ideas, xi (1953), 259–86; idem, introduction to de La Mettrie J. O. , L'homme machine (Princeton, 1960).

Roger Jacques , Les sciences de la vie dans la pensée française du XVIII^e siècle (Paris, 1963; 2nd edn, 1972); Callot Émile , La philosophie de la vie au XVIII^e siècle (Paris, 1965).

De Maillet's treatise has recently been translated by Carozzi Albert V. , Telliamed, or conversations between an Indian philosopher and a French missionary on the dimunition of the sea … (Urbana, Illinois, 1968). The only modern printing of La Mettrie's work with which I am familiar is Vartanian's edition of L'homme machine.

D'Holbach's Système de la nature has recently been reprinted with an introduction by Yvon Belavelle (Hildesheim, 1966, 2 vols). The most easily available edition of the relevant works by Diderot is the one edited by Paul Vernière, Oeuvres philosophiques (Paris, 1966). There is a translation of D'Alembert's dream along with Rameau's nephew by Tancock L. W. (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1966).

See Roger J. , “Diderot et Buffon en 1749”, Diderot studies, iv (1963), 221–36; Vartanian A. , “From deist to atheist”, Diderot studies, i (1949), 46–61, and “The enigma of Diderot's Eléments de physiologie”, Diderot studies, x (1968), 285–301; Hill Emita , “Materialism and monsters in Le rêve de d'Alembert”, Diderot studies, x (1968), 67–94; Perkins Jean A. , “Diderot and La Mettrie”, Studies in Voltaire and the eighteenth century, x (1959), 49–100.

Naville Pierre , D'Holbach et la philosophie scientifique au XVIII^e siècle (new edition, Paris, 1967).

Crocker Lester G. , “Diderot and eighteenth century French transformism”, in Glass , Forerunners of Darwin, 114–43.

There is a detailed study of this connection by Torrey Norman L. , Voltaire and the English deists (New Haven, 1930).

See Ray John , Miscellaneous discourses concerning the dissolution and changes of the world (London, 1692), 170.

The Système de la nature was originally published under the name of Baumann. The 1768 edition of Maupertuis's Oeuvres has recently been reprinted (4 vols, Hildesheim, 1965). There is a translation of The earthly Venus by Simone Brangier Boas (New York and London, 1968) which occasionally contributes to the precursor hunting tradition by using modern-sounding phrases to translate expressions for which they are hardly appropriate.

See the section on Maupertuis in Guyenot, Les sciences de la vie and Glass Bentley , “Maupertuis, pioneer of genetics and evolution”, in Forerunners of Darwin, 51–83.

King-Hele Desmond , Erasmus Darwin (New York, 1963). King-Hele attempts to back up his opinion with extensive passages reproduced in his The essential writings of Erasmus Darwin (London, 1968), but the resemblances to modern views which he points out are often superficial. In an earlier period Samuel Butler attempted to belittle Charles Darwin by claiming that his ideas were anticipated by his grandfather; on this episode, see “The Darwin-Butler controversy” in Barlow Nora (ed.), The autobiography of Charles Darwin (New York, 1958), 167–219. For a more reasonable assessment of the relationship, see “On Charles Darwin and his grandfather, Dr Erasmus Darwin”, ibid., 149–66.

Brunet Pierre , Maupertuis (2 vols, Paris, 1929).

Harrison James , “Erasmus Darwin's views on evolution”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxii (1972), 247–64.

Lovejoy Arthur O. , The great chain of being. A study in the history of an idea (reprinted, New York, 1960), lecture ix.

Daudin Henri , Études d'histoire des sciences naturelles, i, De Linné à Jussieu; méthodes de la classification et l'idée de série en botanique et en zoologie. ii, Cuvier et Lamarck; les classes zoologiques et l'idée de série animale (Paris, 1926).

Glass Bentley , “Heredity and variation in the eighteenth century concept of species”, in Forerunners of Darwin , 144–72; Whitman C. O. , “Bonnet's theory of evolution”, and “The Palingenesia and the germ theory of Bonnet”, in Biological lectures delivered at the Marine Biological Laboratory of Wood's Hole, 1894 (Boston, 1895), 225–40 and 241–72.

Savioz Raymond , La philosophie de Charles Bonnet de Genève (Paris, 1948). A useful addition to Bonnet's published works is Savioz's edition of the Mémoires autobiographiques de Charles Bonnet (Paris, 1948).

I have attempted a brief analysis of Bonnet's thought in my “Buffon and Bonnet: Theories of generation and the problem of species”, Journal of the history of biology, vi (1973), 259–81.

See Haber Francis C. , “Fossils and the idea of a process of time in natural history”, in Forerunners of Darwin , 222–64 and the same author's The age of the earth: Moses to Darwin (Baltimore, 1959). The works in which Voltaire discusses these issues directly have not been translated into English, but see the first chapter of his The philosophy of history (ed. Kierman Thomas , New York, 1965) where he argues for quite large revolutions in the history of the globe.

See Hutton James , Theory of the earth, with proofs and illustrations (2 vols, 1795; reprinted Weinheim/Bergstr. and Codicote, Herts, 1960), 175–6, where it is claimed that the inhabitants of the ocean, at least, have remained unchanged since the first rocks of the present continents were laid down.

Hooykaas R. , “Geological uniformitarianism and evolution”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xix (1966), 3–19. On somewhat similar lines M. J. S. Rudwick has argued that the real difference between Charles Lyell's uniformitarianism and the catastrophist theory depended not so much on the rate of geological change as upon the difference between a steady-state view of the world and a directional or developmental picture in which the earth's history has a definite beginning and (presumably) end: See his “The strategy of Lyell's Principles of geology”, Isis, lxi (1970), 5–33, and “Uniformity and progression; reflections of the structure of geological theory in the age of Lyell”, in Roller Duane H. D. (ed.), Perspectives in the history of science and technology (Oklahoma, 1971), 209–27.

Playfair John , Illustrations of the Huttonian theory of the earth (1802, reprinted New York, 1964), 469–70.

There is a recent study of Linnaeus's views on the structure of nature by Larson James L. , Reason and experience. The representation of natural order in the work of Carl von Linné (Berkeley, 1971). There are a number of modern reprints of Linnaeus's writings: Systema naturae (1735; reprinted Nieuwkoop, 1964; Fundamenta botanica and Bibliotheca botanica (1736; reprinted Munich, 1968) and Philosophia botanica (1751; reprinted Codicote, Herts, and New York, 1966). The Systema naturae reprint contains a translation into English.

These include John Greene's The death of Adam; Glass Bentley , “Heredity and variation in the eighteenth century concept of species”, in Forerunners of Darwin, and Roberts F. J. , Plant hybridization before Mendel (Princeton, 1929), 15–33.

See Guyenot , Les sciences de la vie, especially 397. There are no extensive translations from Buffon's great Histoire naturelle available, but a modern edition of the works has been prepared by Piveteau Jean , Oeuvres philosophiques de Buffon (Paris, 1964). J. Roger has edited Les époques de la nature and supplied a valuable introduction, Mémoires du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, n.s., series c, x (1962).

See Wohl R. , “Buffon and his project for a new science”, Isis, li (1960), 186–99.

On Buffon's early development see Hanks Lesley , Buffon avant l'Histoire naturelle (Paris, 1966).

Lovejoy A. O. , “Buffon and the problem of species”, in Forerunners of Darwin, 84–113.

Farber Paul L. , “Buffon and the concept of species”, Journal of the history of biology, v (1972), 259–84.

See Roger , Les sciences de la vie, especially 578–81. Roger emphasizes the importance of a passage in the fourth supplementary volume to the Histoire naturelle (Paris, 1775), 509.

Ostoya , Les théories d'évolution, 54–55, and Wilkie J. S. , “The idea of evolution in the writings of Buffon”, Annals of science, xii (1956), 48–62, 212–27 and 255–66, especially 220–5.

See the article “Buffon and Bonnet: Theories of generation and the problem of species”, Journal of the history of biology, vi (1973), 259–81.

On Buffon's religious views, see Piveteau J. , “La pensée religieuse de Buffon”, in Heim Roger (ed.), Buffon (Paris, 1952).

Gillispie Charles C. , “The formation of Lamarck's evolutionary theory”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, ix (1956), 323–38.

Hodge M. J. S. , “Lamarck's science of living bodies”, British journal for the history of science, v (1971), 323–52; Mayr Ernst , “Lamarck revisited”, Journal of the history of biology, v (1972), 55–94; Burckhardt Richard W. Jr , “The inspiration of Lamarck's belief in evolution”, ibid. , 413–38. A translation of Lamarck's Zoological philosophy by Hugh Eliot is available (1914; reprinted New York, 1963), and his essentially uniformitarian Hydrogeology has been translated by Albert V. Carozzi (Urbana, Illinois, 1964). The latter work illustrates how uniformitarianism could serve as the background for a transmutation theory once the conviction that organic change has taken place was provided from some other source.

See Burckhardt R. W. Jr , “Lamarck, evolution and the politics of science”, Journal of the history of biology, iii (1970), 275–96.

Mandelbaum Maurice , “The scientific background to evolutionary theory in biology”, reprinted from Journal of the history of ideas (1957) in Wiener P. P. Noland A. (eds), Roots of scientific thought (New York, 1957), 517–36.

Gillispie C. C. , “Lamarck and Darwin in the history of science”, in Forerunners of Darwin, 265–90.

Foucault Michel , Les mots et les choses (Paris, 1966), translated as The nature of things (London, 1970).

Huxley discussed the eighteenth century in general in his article “Evolution in biology”, Essays, ii, ‘Darwiniana’ (London, 1893), 187–226, and gave his opinion of Lamarck in particular in his “On the reception of The origin of species”, in Darwin Francis (ed.), The life and letters of Charles Darwin (London, 1887), ii, 189. On Darwin's ignorance of Buffon's theory, see the letters, ibid. , iii, 44–45. In 1844 he described Lamarck's theory as “veritable rubbish”: See the letter to Hooker J. D. , ibid., ii, 29. The “historical sketch” added to later editions of the Origin of species makes only a passing reference to Buffon and Erasmus Darwin, and includes only a superficial outline of Lamarck's views.

Greene J. C. , “The Kuhnian paradigm and the Darwinian revolution in natural history”, in Roller (ed.), Perspectives in the history of science, 3–25.

Gillispie C. C. , Genesis and geology. A study in the relations of scientific thought, natural theology, and social opinion in Great Britain, 1790–1850 (Harvard, 1951). This work concentrates only on the eighteenth century thinkers who retained a more orthodox view of religion, and this limits its value to the historian concerned with the collapse of Enlightenment thought.

For Deluc's ridicule of the eighteenth century speculations see his Lettres sur l'histoire physique de la terre, addressées à M. le professeur Blumenbach (Paris, 1798), lettre vii. Note how the same work takes it for granted at many points that new species have been introduced at different points in the earth's history.

Smith speaks openly of special creations in his Stratigraphical system of organized fossils (London, 1817), vii.

The persistent myth that Owen was totally opposed to evolution is an obvious case in which the tendency to see the nineteenth century in Darwinian terms has produced a major historical distortion. As early as 1849 Owen was writing of a continuous progression of life brought about by secondary causes; for a survey of his opinions, see MacLeod Roy M. , “Evolutionism and Richard Owen”, Isis, lvi (1965), 259–80. In a somewhat similar vein, M. J. S. Hodge has recently pointed out the distortions which have been produced by treating Chambers's theory as a primitive version of Darwin's; see his “The universal gestation of nature: Chambers' Vestiges and Explanations”, Journal of the history of biology, v (1972), 127–52. Essentially, the problem here was that the whole idea of a miracle became hazy and was incorporated into a somewhat unusual concept of natural law; on the origins of this issue, see Cannon Walter F. , “The problem of miracles in the 1830s”, Victorian studies, iv (1960), 5–32.