Venel,Lavoisier,Fourcroy,Cabanis and the Idea of Scientific Revolution: The French Political Context and the General Patterns of Conceptualization of Scientific Change

One could hardly enumerate all the relevant works. One recent collection of papers is Knorr Karen D. Krohn Roger Whitley Richard (eds), The social process of scientific investigation (Dordrecht-Boston-London, 1980); see also Social studies of science, xi (1981).

Forman Paul , “Weimar culture, causality, and quantum theory, 1918–1927: Adaptation by German physicists and mathematicians to a hostile environment”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1971), 1–116; Hendry John , “Weimar culture and quantum causality”, History of science, xviii (1980), 155–80.

Cohen I. Bernard , “The eighteenth-century origins of the concept of scientific revolution”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxvii (1976), 257–88; idem, “William Whewell and the concept of scientific revolution”, Boston studies in the philosophy of science, xxxix (1976), 55–63; idem, “The Copernican revolution from an eighteenth-century perspective: With notes on Jean-Sylvain Bailly's views on revolutions in science”, Festschrift fur Willy Hartner (Wiesbaden, 1977), 43–54.

Guerlac Henry , “The chemical revolution: A word from Monsieur Fourcroy”, Ambix, xxiii (1976), 1–4.

Berthelot M. , La Révolution chimique — Lavoisier (Paris, 1890), 46–47.

Ibid., 49.

Furetière Antoine , Dictionnaire universel, iii (The Hague and Rotterdam, 1690).

Dictionnaire de l'Académie Françoise, i (Paris, 1762), 689.

Cohen , op. cit. (ref. 3).

Deslandes A. , Histoire critique de la philosophie, où l'on traite de son origine, de ses progrès, & des diverses révolutions qui lui sont arrivées jusqu'à notre temps (2nd edn, tomes 1–4, Amsterdam, 1756).

The historical literature contains many different opinions on the reality and intensity of that shift to the revolutionary thinking. E.g., “Deux causes, au milieu du XVIII’ siècle, ont suscite l'esprit révolutionnaire: D'une part, la querelle janséniste et parlementaire, envenimée par sa durée même; d'autre part, le sentiment de mépris provoqué par l'incapacité honteuse de ce roi qui avait été si longtemps l'amour et l'espoir de la France”. Aubertin Charles , L'esprit public au XVIII^e siècle (Paris, 1873), 273. Another author proposes a more radical opinion still: “En présence d'une situation si critique, la nécessité d'un changement dans le régime politique de la France était généralement sentie. Dès les premiers mois de l'année 1751, c'était, parmi les hommes capables de réflexion, le sujet le plus ordinaire des discours. Ce changement se résumait dans un mot, celui de Révolution.” Rocquain Felix , L'esprit révolutionnaire avant la révolution, 1715–1789 (Paris, 1878), 145. But there is rather a different point of view: “On n'a pas du tout l'idée d'une révolution violente, ni même d'une transformation pacifique mais profonde qui serait une sorte de révolution. Assurément les textes ne manquent pas où quelquesuns annoncent une révolution certaine, probable, possible…. Mais se sont là des opinions en realité isolées.” Mornet Daniel , Les origines intellectuelles de la Révolution Française (1715–1787) (Paris, 1933), 144.

There is an interesting illustration. Frederic-Melchior Grimm produced such a text on 1 July 1753: Les brouilleries du parlement de Paris avec la cour, son exil, et la grand chambre transférée à Pontoise, tous ces événements n'ont été un sujet d'entretien pour Paris que pendant vingt-quatre heures, et quoi que ce corps respectable eût fait depuis un an pour fixer les yeux du public, il n'a jamais pu obtenir la trentième partie de l'attention qu'on a donnée à la révolution arrivée dans la musique. Les acteurs italiens qui jouent depuis dix mois sur le théâtre de l'opéra de Paris, et qu'on nomme ici bouffons, ont tellement absorbé l'attention de Paris, que le parlement, malgré toutes ses démarches et procédures qui devaient lui donner de la célébrité, ne pouvait pas manquer de tomber dans un oubli entier. Un homme d'esprit a dit que l'arrivée de Manelli nous avait évité une guerre civile, parce que, sans cet événement, les esprits oisifs et tranquilles se seraient sans doute occupés des différends du parlement et du clergé, et que la fanatisme, qui échauffe si aisément les têtes, aurait pu avoir des suites funestes! Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique de Grimm et de Diderot, i (Paris, 1829), 27–28. It is of significance that Grimm, while rejecting the importance of the political events, utilizes the new meanings generated in the course of these events!.

Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, iii (Paris, 1753), 409.

Ibid., 409–10.

Ibid., 431.

Ibid., 437.

See, for example, Dolby R.G. A. , “The transmission of science”, History of science, xv (1977), 1–43; Crosland M. Smith C. , “The transmission of physics from France to Britain, 1800–1840”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, ix (1978), 1–61.

Lavoisier , Ouvres, ii (Paris, 1862), 623–55.

Ibid., 624.

Ibid., 624.

Compare in this connection Gerald Holton's concept of “suspension of disbelief” as “the ability during the early period of theory construction and theory confirmation to hold in abeyance final judgements concerning the validity of apparent falsifications of a promising hypothesis”. Holton Gerald , “Subelectrons, presuppositions, and the Millican-Ehrenhaft dispute”, in Holton Gerald , The scientific imagination: Case studies (Cambridge, 1978), 71.

Lavoisier , Oeuvres, ii (ref. 18), 655.

See, for example, Barnes B. , Interests and the growth of knowledge (London, 1977); Shapin Steven , “The politics of observation: Cerebral anatomy and social interests in the Edinburgh phrenology disputes”, in Wallis Roy (ed.), On the margins of science: The social construction of rejected knowledge (Sociological Review Monograph 27, University of Keele, 1979), 139–78; Pickering Andrew , “The role of interests in high-energy physics: The choice between charm and colour”, in Knorr , ( Crohn Whitley , op. cit. (ref. 1), 107–38.

Lavoisier , Oeuvres, ii (ref. 18), 616–22, p. 622.

Grimaux Edouard , Lavoisier, 1743–1794 (Paris, 1888), 126.

The special significance of the letter has been stressed by Guerlac , op. cit. (ref. 4).

van Klooster H. S. , “Franklin and Lavoisier”, Journal of chemical education, xxiii (1946), 108–9.

Lavoisier , Oeuvres, ii (ref. 18), 624–5.

Having in mind his own theory, Lavoisier indicates that “cette doctrine est diamétralement opposée á celle de Stahl et de ces disciplines”, ibid., 652.

I use this term in Holton's sense (see ref. 21).

Lavoisier , Oeuvres, ii (ref. 18), 669.

Pigeire Jean , La vie et l'oeuvre de Chaptal (1756–1832) (Paris, 1933), 96.

See Guerlac , Chemical revolution (ref. 4).

Encyclopédie méthodique: Chimie, pharmacie et métallurgie, iii (Paris, 1796), 262–781.

Ibid., 342.

Cohen , “The eighteenth-century origins” (ref. 3).

Encyclopedie méthodique, iii (ref. 34), 715.

Ibid., 541.

Cabanis , Oeuvres philosophiques, ii (Paris, 1956), 65–254.

Ibid., 71.

Cabanis borrowed his information on the history of chemistry from Fourcroy's article (see ref. 34, and Cabanis , op. cit. (ref. 39), 136).

The idea of a multiplicity of revolutions in the history of science (strictly speaking, in the history of astronomy) can be found also in Jean-Sylvain Bailly's works (see Cohen, op. cit. (ref. 3)). However, I am not convinced at all, pace Cohen, that Bailly himself was a person who really “developed a complete theory of scientific revolutions”. To my mind, Cohen's paper merely shows that Bailly only credited some events in the history of science with the rank of revolutions, but didn't move much further. Labels of similar kind can be discovered in Venel's article too, but I wouldn't credit him with the title of the first creator of a theory of scientific revolutions. Nor would I ascribe this title to Fourcroy or Cabanis personally. I believe that the theory of scientific revolutions, if there was any, was a collective creation by many authors, and I have named only the main ones.

Cabanis , op. cit. (ref. 39), 68.

One could object that Fourcroy did use the word ‘revolution’ quite positively. But I think that we have to take into consideration his high social position during the mid-1790s which couldn't help influencing his attitudes. I also suspect that it is possible to discover certain shifts in his attitudes reflected within the text of his article, which was written over the course of two years.

McCann H. Gilman , Chemistry transformed: The paradigmatic shift from phlogiston to oxygen (Norwood, NJ, 1978).

Callon Michel , “Struggles and negotiations to define what is problematic and what is not: The socio-logic of translations”, in Knorr Krohn Whitley , op. cit. (ref. 1), 197–219.