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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Histoire Naturelle | 3/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histoire_Naturelle | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T08:49:24.741406+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Translations === The Histoire Naturelle was translated (in whole, in part, or abridged) into languages including English, German, Swedish, Russian and Italian. 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 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 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 Grund and Holle, 1750–1775; Johann Samuel Heinsius, 1756–1782; Joseph Georg Trassler, 1784–1785; and by Pauli, 1772–1829. Italian translations include the edition published by Appresso Giuseppe Galeazzi in Milan, 1770–1773. 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") 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.
== Reception ==
=== Contemporary ===
The Histoire Naturelle had 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 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 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 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.
=== Modern ===
==== Philosophy ==== The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls 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 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 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 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.
==== Style ==== 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. Buffon was roundly criticised by his fellow academics for writing a "purely popularizing work, empty and puffed up, with little real scientific value". Knapp notes that some quite radical ideas are to be found in his work, but that these are almost invisible, given 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 a romantic novel than a dry scientific treatise".