Books 37-40 OK

autumn books

saw the revolution (“I see a large movement coming, and no one to lead it”). Après lui le déluge What the layman liked above all in Buffon Buffon was his skill for popularizing the natural sci- by Jacques Roger ences, largely using common sense as a basis Cornell University Press: 1997. Pp. 492. for deeper questions, covering all fields from $49.95, £39.50 astronomy to anthropology, and all this in an BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY Philippe Janvier explanatory historical framework that did not seem too shocking to religious minds. When about to be guillotined in 1794, “Buf- The situation was quite different in aca- fonet”, the unfortunate son of the French demic circles. During his lifetime, Buffon naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc, Count of faced strong criticism from some French and Buffon (1707–88), appealed to the people by foreign scientists (in particular the followers shouting “Citizens, my name is Buffon!”, in of Linnaeus) who accused him of being a the hope that this would perhaps save him. superficial observer, a flabby experimenter He was aware that the considerable fame and an “empty and bombastic” thinker. Dur- of his late father, who had died a year before ing the revolution and empire, Buffon faded the French Revolution, had survived the into the past as a typical character of the turmoils of the terror. ancien régime, although his fame remained Buffonet failed, but Buffon still remains great among the public, as shown by the “Courly rouge du Brésil,” from Buffon’s Histoire dear to the heart of the French layman. Until numerous editions of his Histoire Naturelle. Naturelle des Oiseaux. the 1950s, French popular books on animals With Darwin and the rise of modern evo- frequently referred to Buffon (The Children’s lutionary thought, and until recently, some vives unchanged in time, and he regarded Buffon, The Family’s Buffon, and so on). tried to find in Buffon’s works cryptic allu- groups of species (taxa) as mere speculations What made Buffon so different from sions to descent with modification. The aim based on arbitrary sets of characters. Mod- other ‘savants’ of the past two centuries? He was to show that Buffon was a pioneer of this ern systematists would add that these sets of was admittedly a pioneer of many new fields, idea as well, rather than Lamarck who, characters no longer need to be arbitrary if tackling such issues as the antiquity of the unjustly, bore alone the burden of the theory demonstrably inherited from a common Earth, the biological species concept and his- of the inheritance of acquired characters. ancestor and, in a sense, are more real than torical biogeography. But time has passed; The famous chapter on the ass, where Buf- species themselves, but they would agree that we now live in the age of evolution, domi- fon precisely describes all the evolutionary taxa are not real. nated by the glorious shadow of Darwin, and consequences of the classifications and sud- This book is full of amusing anecdotes, Buffon’s writings sound obsolete. denly rejects them as if in fear of the censor, such as the vivid reaction of Thomas Jeffer- Jacques Roger (1920–90), a world- is often cited as evidence for his transformist son to Buffon’s statement that North Ameri- renowned historian of eighteenth-century convictions. can animals were smaller than European science, devoted most of his academic life to Roger, however, rejects this interpreta- ones because North America was cooler than Buffon. His book, first published in French tion. When Buffon feared the censor, such as Europe at equal latitude (Buffon was (Buffon, un Philosophe au Jardin du Roi, in the case of the age of the Earth, he used to obsessed by the relationship between heat 1989), is now translated into English — express his ideas in a cautious way, as a mere and life). This was unacceptable for Ameri- admirably so — and provides not only a theory, but with numerous factual argu- cans and later led Jefferson to try to find liv- biography of Buffon, but also a thorough ments in support of it. On the contrary, in the ing mammoths in the West. analysis of his views in the framework of the case of the ‘transmutation’ of species, his Roger’s book reads like a novel but also philosophical debates in the second half of rejection was straightforward because his explains the rise of Buffon’s ideas in the gen- the eighteenth century. strict species concept, based on the eral context of the debates of his time. Its Roger points out previously unnoticed immutability of the “interior mould” and numerous notes, references and extensive aspects of Buffon’s innovative insights, but intersterility through time, could in no way index make it a major tool for historians of he also puts back in their right place allow it. science. I would also recommend it to pro- several overinterpreted sections of Buffon’s Moreover, had he been a transformist, he fessional biologists and biology students, 44-volume Histoire Naturelle Générale et could have referred to Maupertuis who, in for whom serious biology often starts only Particulière. 1751, had already proposed a theory of evo- with Darwin. The French are usually prone to defend- lution based on successive, fortuitous muta- The book clearly shows that Buffon ing humble scientists who are victims of tions within species (to which Darwin later addressed many questions that are still perti- oblivion or authority, such as Lamarck, but added natural selection). But Buffon re- nent to biology and that some sections of his their sympathy for Buffon is at odds with this jected this view with a number of arguments Histoire Naturelle are amazingly modern in tradition. Buffon was not a victim, nor a that would be repeated by antievolutionists comparison with later, nineteenth-century rejected genius, nor an introverted scientist. throughout the nineteeth century. views (in particular his observations on the He loved life, food, women, wealth, power Chapter 14 of Roger’s book will be uniqueness and biogeographical history of and honours, and he was perfectly conscious extremely useful to historians of biology, as it the human species). of the success of his popular style. He was clearly explains Buffon’s concepts of species, The English translation by Sarah L. also a good businessman and a talented genus and family, which are different from Bonnefoi is superb, as it preserves both the manager. Linnaeus’s view and, in addition, changed accuracy of Roger’s style and the elegance Nevertheless, he was moderate enough in with time. and subtlety of Buffon’s, which he himself both his scientific statements and his politi- Nevertheless, Buffon’s ideas about regarded as most important in conveying cal involvements to avoid having severe species and systematics are strangely conver- his ideas. problems with either the censor or the pro- gent with those of some modern systematists Philippe Janvier is at the Laboratoire de gressive circles of his time. He seemed to cope and phylogeneticists. He considered the Paléontologie, Muséum National d’Histoire very well with his society, although he fore- species as the only entity in nature that sur- Naturelle, 8 Rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France.