French naturalist (1701-1788)
For other people named Buffon, see Buffon (disambiguation).
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (French:[ʒɔʁʒlwiləklɛʁkɔ̃tdəbyfɔ̃]; 7 Sep 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, and cosmologist. He held the position of intendant (director) get rid of impurities the Jardin du Roi, now called the Jardin des plantes.
Buffon's works influenced 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 newborn research being published in the two decades following his death.[1]
Ernst Mayr wrote that "Truly, Buffon was the father of dividing up thought in natural history in the second half of picture 18th century".[2] Credited with being one of the first naturalists to recognize ecological succession, he was later forced by interpretation 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.[3][4]
Georges Louis Leclerc (later Philosopher de Buffon) was born at Montbard, in the province detailed Burgundy to Benjamin François Leclerc, a minor local official place in charge of the salt tax and Anne-Christine Marlin, also evade a family of civil servants. Georges was named after his mother's uncle (his godfather) Georges Blaisot, the tax-farmer of representation 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 the nearby settlement of Buffon and moved the family to Dijon acquiring different offices there as well as a seat in the City Parlement.
Georges attended the Jesuit College of Godrans in Metropolis from the age of ten onwards. From 1723 to 1726 he then studied law in Dijon, the prerequisite for lasting the family tradition in civil service. In 1728 Georges assess Dijon to study mathematics and medicine at the University be defeated Angers in France. At Angers in 1730 he made description 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 person in charge a half through southern France and parts of Italy.[5]
There bear out persistent but completely undocumented rumors from this period about duels, abductions and secret trips to England. In 1732 after say publicly death of his mother and before the impending remarriage be more or less his father, Georges left Kingston and returned to Dijon statement of intent secure his inheritance. Having added 'de Buffon' to his name while traveling with the Duke, he repurchased the village claim Buffon, which his father had meanwhile sold off. With a fortune of about 80,000 livres (at the time, worth all but 27 kilograms of gold), Buffon set himself up in Town to pursue science, at first primarily mathematics and mechanics, countryside the increase of his fortune.[6]
In 1732 he moved to Town, where he made the acquaintance of Voltaire and other intellectuals. He lived in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, with Gilles-François Boulduc, leading apothecary of the King, professor of chemistry at the Queenly Garden of Plants, member of the Academy of Sciences.[7] Sand first made his mark in the field of mathematics abide, in his Sur le jeu de franc-carreau (On the pastime of fair-square), introduced differential and integral calculus into probability theory; the problem of Buffon's needle in probability theory is person's name after him. In 1734 he was admitted to the Gallic Academy of Sciences. During this period he corresponded with say publicly Swiss mathematician Gabriel Cramer.
His protector Maurepas had asked depiction Academy of Sciences to do research on wood for rendering construction of ships in 1733. Soon afterward, Buffon began a long-term study, performing some of the most comprehensive tests wish 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 surpass a thousand small specimens without knots or other defects, Buffon concluded that it was not possible to extrapolate to rendering properties of full-size timbers, and he began a series attack tests on full-size structural members.
In 1739 he was appointive head of the Parisian Jardin du Roi with the copy of Maurepas; he held this position to the end endlessly his life. Buffon was instrumental in transforming the Jardin buffer Roi into a major research center and museum. He further enlarged it, arranging the purchase of adjoining plots of insipid and acquiring new botanical and zoological specimens from all spin the world.
Thanks to his talent as a writer, without fear was invited to join Paris's second great academy, the Académie Française in 1753 and then in 1768 he was elective to the American Philosophical Society.[8] In his Discours sur pass around style ("Discourse on Style"), pronounced before the Académie française, filth said, "Writing well consists of thinking, feeling and expressing vigorous, of clarity of mind, soul and taste ... The style evolution the man himself" ("Le style c'est l'homme même").[9] Unfortunately seek out him, Buffon's reputation as a literary stylist also gave armaments to his detractors: the mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert, insinuation example, called him "the great phrase-monger".
In 1752 Buffon united Marie-Françoise de Saint-Belin-Malain, the daughter of an impoverished noble kinsmen from Burgundy, who had been enrolled in the convent educational institution run by his sister. Madame de Buffon's second child, a son born in 1764, survived childhood; she herself died encompass 1769. When in 1772 Buffon became seriously ill and interpretation 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 picture status of a county – and thus Buffon (and his son) became a count. He was elected a Foreign Nominal Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences embankment 1782.[10] Buffon died in Paris in 1788.
He was consigned to the grave in a chapel adjacent to the church of Sainte-Urse Montbard; during the French Revolution, his tomb was broken into captivated the lead that covered the coffin was ransacked to squirt bullets. His son, George-Louie-Marie Buffon (often called Buffonet) was guillotined on July 10, 1794.[11] Buffon's heart was initially saved, renovation it was guarded by Suzanne Necker (wife of Jacques Necker), but was later lost. Today, only Buffon's cerebellum remains, significance it is kept in the base of the statue gross Pajou that Louis XVI had commissioned in his honor small fry 1776, located at the Museum of Natural History in Town.
His Histoire naturelle was also a source of inspiration realize the painters of the Sèvres factory, giving rise to porcelain services called Buffon. The name of the different species, dependably reproduced, is inscribed on the back of each piece. A sprinkling "Buffon services" were produced during the reign of Louis XVI; the first was intended for the Count of Artois, grasp 1782.
Buffon's Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (1749–1788: featureless 36 volumes; an additional volume based on his notes exposed in 1789) was originally intended to cover all three "kingdoms" of nature but the Histoire naturelle ended up being community to the animal and mineral kingdoms, and the animals unmoving were only the birds and quadrupeds. "Written in a radiant style, this work was read ... by every educated in a straight line in Europe".[2] Those who assisted him in the production advice this great work included Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton, Philibert Guéneau institute Montbeillard, and Gabriel-Léopold Bexon, along with numerous artists. Buffon's Histoire naturelle was translated into many different languages, making him susceptible of the most widely read authors of the day, a rival to Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire.[12]
In the opening volumes lacking the Histoire naturelle Buffon questioned the usefulness of mathematics, criticized Carl Linnaeus's taxonomical approach to natural history, outlined a world of the Earth with little relation to the Biblical side, and proposed a theory of reproduction that ran counter be acquainted with the prevailing theory of pre-existence. The early volumes were taken by the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne. Buffon publicised a retraction, but he continued publishing the offending volumes outdoors any change.
In the course of his examination of interpretation animal world, Buffon noted that different regions have distinct plants and animals despite similar environments, a concept later known pass for Buffon's Law. This is considered to be the first truth of biogeography. He made the suggestion that species may take both "improved" and "degenerated" after dispersing from a center objection creation. In volume 14 he argued that all the world's quadrupeds had developed from an original set of just thirty-eight quadrupeds.[13] On this basis, he is sometimes considered a "transformist" and a precursor of Darwin. He also asserted that ambience change may have facilitated the worldwide spread of species dismiss their centers of origin. Still, interpreting his ideas on picture subject is not simple, for he returned to topics haunt times in the course of his work.
Buffon originally held that “the animals common both to the old and fresh world are smaller in the latter,”[14] ascribing this to environmental conditions. Upon meeting Buffon, Thomas Jefferson attempted “to convince him of his error,” noting that “the reindeer could walk in the shade the belly of our moose.” Buffon, who was “absolutely unacquainted” with the moose, asked for a specimen.[15] Jefferson dispatched 20 soldiers to the New Hampshire woods to find a midpoint moose for Buffon as proof of the "stature and municipal of American quadrupeds".[16] According to Jefferson, the specimen “convinced Mr. Buffon. He promised in his next volume to set these things right."[17]
In Les époques de la nature (1778) Buffon discussed the origins of the Solar System, speculating that the planets had been created by a comet's collision with the Sun.[18] He also suggested that the Earth originated much earlier escape 4004 BC, the date determined by Archbishop James Ussher. Basing his figures on the cooling rate of iron tested go off his Laboratory the Petit Fontenet at Montbard, he calculated defer the Earth was at least 75,000 years old. Once homecoming, his ideas were condemned by the Sorbonne, and once continue he issued a retraction to avoid further problems.[19]
Buffon knew have a high regard for the existence of extinct species as mammoths or European rhinos. And some of his assumptions have inspired current models, much 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, the construct that all humanity has a single origin, and that fleshly differences arose from adaptation to environmental factors, including climate gain diet. He speculated on the possibility that the first humanity were dark-skinned Africans,[20] but did not pinpoint the area a variety of human origin beyond delineating it as “the most temperate ambience [that] lies between the 40th and 50th degree of latitude.” [21] This geophysical band encompasses portions of Europe, North Earth, North Africa, Mongolia, and China.
Controversially for a European look up to his era, Buffon did not believe that Europe was depiction cradle of human civilization. Instead he stated that Japanese near Chinese culture were “of a very ancient date,” and renounce Europe “only much later received the light from the East…it is thus in the northern countries of Asia that say publicly stem of human knowledge grew."[22]
Buffon thought that skin color could change in a single lifetime, depending on the conditions bad deal climate and diet.[23] 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".[24] Even, Buffon also challenged Carl Linnaeus' conceptualization of the fixed element of race. In this sense, Buffon expands his perspective strain monogenism that associating these dissimilar traits and features into incontestable larger category rather than in a fixed division. This brought to his conceptualization on distinguishing race in a broad dominant narrow sense; in a broad sense, race means larger associations of people who inhabit a huge region known as a continent; while in a narrow sense, it denotes equivalently process "nation".[25] With this, he implies his ambivalence in defining cuddle by looking at specific traits to differenciate them but as a consequence the same time he rejects the idea of categorizing mercy in a specific fixed division. Therefore, because Buffon seems attack favor in working on gerealization and marking the similarities fairly than the difference in the race categorization.
Charles Darwin wrote in his preliminary historical sketch added tot up the third edition of On the Origin of Species: "Passing over ... Buffon, with whose writings I am not familiar". Then, from the fourth edition onwards, he amended this ensue 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 restructuring he does not enter on the causes or means addendum the transformation of species, I need not here enter give something the onceover details".[26] Buffon's work on degeneration, however, was immensely influential put your feet up later scholars but was overshadowed by strong moral overtones.[27]
The ambiguity of Buffon is that, according to Ernst Mayr:
He was not an evolutionary biologist, yet he was the father chide evolutionism. He was the first person to discuss a hefty number of evolutionary problems, problems that before Buffon had gather together been raised by anybody ... he brought them to say publicly attention of the scientific world.
Except for Aristotle and Naturalist, no other student of organisms [whole animals and plants] has had as far-reaching an influence.
He brought the notion of evolution into the realm of science. He developed a concept of the "unity of type", a precursor of qualified anatomy. More than anyone else, he was responsible for depiction acceptance of a long-time scale for the history of picture earth. He was one of the first to imply think it over you get inheritance from your parents, in a description supported on similarities between elephants and mammoths. And yet, he busy evolution by his frequent endorsement of the immutability of technique. He provided a criterion of species, fertility among members tablets a species, that was thought impregnable.[2]
Buffon wrote about the thought of struggle for existence.[28] He developed a system of constitution which was similar to Darwin's hypothesis of pangenesis.[29] Commenting success Buffon's views, Darwin stated, "If Buffon had assumed that his organic molecules had been formed by each separate unit all the way through the body, his view and mine would have been grip closely similar."[30]
“Buffon asked most all of the questions that body of laws has since been striving to answer,” the historian Otis Fellows wrote in 1970.
His glory lies in what appease prepared for his successors: bold and seminal views on depiction common characters of life’s origin, laws of geographical distribution, a geological record of the earth’s evolution, extinction of old nature, the successive appearance of new species, the unity of say publicly human race.[31]
Buffon, Œuvres, ed. S. Schmitt and C. Crémière, Paris: Gallimard, 2007.
Complete works
1774 edition of Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière
Frontispiece of a 1774 edition of Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière
Table of contents of a 1774 edition of Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière
1792 English translation of Buffon's Natural History
Title page of a 1792 English translation of Buffon's Natural History
Table of contents page of a 1792 English translation of Buffon's Natural History
Preface for a 1792 English translation of Buffon's Standard History