In Retrospect: Leibniz's Protogaea

NATURE|Vol 455|4 September 2008 OPINION In Retrospect: Leibniz’s Protogaea The first English translation of Gottfried Leibniz’s earth science treatise records the difficulties of understanding our planet before geologists appreciated deep time, Richard Fortey discovers. Protogaea When considering the origin of minerals, by Gottfreid Wilhelm Leibniz Leibniz has an intuitive sense that a kind Translated by Claudine Cohen and of natural cookery is involved: “One is thus Andre Wakefield inclined to suspect that nature, using volca- University of Chicago Press: 2008. noes as furnaces and mountains as alembics, 204 pp. $55. has accomplished in her mighty works what we play at with our little examples [in labo- It is something of a game among historians ratories].” That the furnaces of the ‘chymist’ to try and detect the earliest hints of a major might simulate Earth’s processes is a hope scientific breakthrough in a little-known work that still drives research into petrology and discovered through recondite scholarship. geochemistry today. Charles Darwin’s supposed debt to his grandfa- Why then did Leibniz’s shrewd obser- ther Erasmus is an example, or maybe geologist vations fail to move geology significantly Charles Lyell’s insufficient acknowledgement towards becoming a mature science? For all its of the early geological work of Nicolaus Steno. insights, Protogaea does not seem to a modern When the savant in question is Gottfried Wil- geologist like the natural ancestor of Lyell’s helm Leibniz (1646–1716) — the man who Principles of Geology. The missing ingredient developed calculus independently of Isaac is an awareness of geological time. Leibniz did Newton — hidden insights might genuinely not place the biblical timescale centrally in his be anticipated. Here was a prolific thinker of science — he was actually very restrained in range and profundity. His Protogaea, a post- invoking the Creator. A short timescale was humously published 1749 treatise on earth simply a given, so widely accepted that he did sciences, has now been translated from its not have to restate it. Even Leibniz’s evident original Latin into English for the first time, awareness of events such as major incursions and bears a title that chimes with our current of the sea over what is now dry land did not concerns about global ecosystems. What did The ‘unicorn’ of Quedlinburg fooled even Leibniz. challenge his view. Geology without time is the great man make of the history of Earth? rather like chemistry without elements: a As he states in the book, Leibniz intended of nature’. He was reacting against philosophers collection of plausible narratives is possible; to develop “the seeds of a new science called such as Athanasius Kircher, who “claim the a rational basis for predictive science is not. natural geography”. The original text would great architect, as if in jest, had imitated the More mundanely, it was also difficult to have been readily comprehensible to his con- teeth and bones of animals, shells or snakes”. travel in the eighteenth century. Leibniz had temporaries, and must surely have seeped into Leibniz was certain that God had much more to rely on the observations of others simply subsequent thoughts about geology. Indeed, serious purposes than planting simulacra in because wide-scale fieldwork was almost had his book been a more complete account, the rocks. Glossopetrae, or ‘tongue stones’, are impossible. Armchair speculation was inevi- ‘geology’ might have been a stillborn term. shark’s teeth, he states, nothing more or less. He table, despite Leibniz’s careful affirmation of As it is, Leibniz picks out facts derived from recognizes ammonites and other fossil shells as his own observations. The true complexity his own observations, from his network of cor- having more than a passing similarity to their of Earth’s history did not begin to be exposed respondence with other natural philosophers, living relatives. The philosophical mind at until French geologists started work in the and from his wide reading of those he regards as work in these passages is of a modern, sceptical Auvergne and the Paris basin, and until James trustworthy observers. His text briefly touches cast, highlighting that Leibniz was well ahead Hutton developed his theory of deep geological on many geological phenomena, from the for- of most of his contemporaries. time in Scotland. The improvement of roads mation of mountains to the origin of minerals Even Leibniz is occasionally credulous. One and canals, and then the advent of railways, and particularly fossils, which in this new trans- illustration in the book shows the unicorn of allowed for different local geological narratives lation are well illustrated by reproductions of Quedlinburg, a chimera of several mammals that to be stitched together. Earth science has sub- the original contemporary woodcuts. Leibniz was ‘discovered’ in 1663. “The horn, together sequently developed to recognize our planet as was unusually scathing for his time about those with the head, several ribs, dorsal vertebrae and an interconnected system that has evolved over who ‘see’ miraculous religious resemblances in bones were brought to the town’s serene abbess”, billions of years. Leibniz’s world is an incom- natural objects, and wrote: “credulity fills in the Leibniz confides, evidently deeming the words plete patchwork of local stories. ■ rough outlines shaped by accident”. Richard of this particular local eyewitness reliable. None- Richard Fortey is a research associate at the Dawkins could not have put it better. theless, he takes on board the field examples Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, Presciently, Leibniz is equally clear about the described by Steno that show how a sequence London SW7 5BD, UK. He is author of The Earth: organic nature of many fossils: fish preserved of strata revealed something of Earth’s history. An Intimate History. in slates are exactly that and not mere ‘games Scientific narrative was only a step away. e-mail: [email protected] 35.

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