Buffon, Linnaeus and the Definition of Species
June 4th, 2009 | by Rick |
Helen Klus asked:
Over 100 years before Darwin published ‘The Origin of the Species’ there was huge controversy over how species should be defined. In 1749, Comte de Buffon, published the Histoire naturelle. where he criticised the most popular system of taxonomy of the time, particularly systems similar to those of Linnaeus, who had presented a global classification of nature in Systema naturae in 1735. This contained an arbitrary system of taxonomy with animals grouped by “broad and variable characteristics, such as their teeth, locomotion, type of blood, if any, and habitual home” (Koerner, 1996, pp147).
Buffon is particularly critical of Linnaeus because he claims that in “wishing to judge the whole by a single part” (Buffon, 1749, pp106) he is intentionally going against what Buffon would consider the most natural system. Linnaeus did not see his arbitrary system as a problem because he did not think that arbitrary and natural systems were mutually exclusive. Instead, Linnaeus believed that only when his artificial system was complete would “the regularities of nature’s diversity” (Ibid, pp 148) reveal themselves.
Buffon does not consider that taxonomy this artificial could be instrumental in finding a natural system and so by ignoring nature Linnaeus is moving further and further from the truth. Buffon highlights the artificial nature of Linnaeus’s singular taxonomy with examples of classes containing plants as different as “the elm and the carrot” and “the rose and the strawberry” (Buffon, pp 105). Buffon suggests that instead, we should judge creatures based on their whole morphology not just singular parts. Individuals are of the same species only if they “resemble each other exactly, or if the differences between them are so small that they can only be perceived with difficulty” (Ibid, pp 106).
Buffon also believes that “in nature only individuals exist, while…classes only exist in our imagination”. Linnaeus’s system could therefore have “been more accurate and less arbitrary” (Ibid, pp 115) had it comprised of more divisions, as this would be more reflective of the unbroken continuum of individuals in nature. By the mid 1760s Buffon had begun to extend his taxonomy into genera and families contradicting his earlier statement that he would only recognize the categorization of species (Sloan, P. pp 357). To understand why this is coherent with his earlier claims I will now look at Sloan’s interpretation of Buffon’s argument.
Sloan’s interpretation, defending taxonomy as a science.
Sloan interprets Buffon’s attack on Linnaeus “primarily in terms of a broader philosophical issue raised…by Locke’s empiricist epistemology” (Sloan, 1976, pp.358). Locke’s epistemology could be used to argue that taxonomy should not be considered a science because the only true knowledge we can have is of our immediate ideas and sensations. Locke’s criticism therefore threatened the status of natural history as a science.
In order to defend natural history from Locke’s scepticism Buffon offers a new epistemology based on mathematical and physical truths. Mathematical truths are “only truths of definition…and have no reality” (Buffon, 1749, pp.23-24). These are to be contrasted with physical truths that have “a probability so great that it is equal to a certitude” (Ibid, pp.24). Physical truths are acquired by witnessing “a frequent repetition and uninterrupted succession of the same event” (Ibid, pp 24). Buffon’s criticism of Linnaeus is therefore that his system is not formed from physical truths, which are based on the best available empirical evidence.
Buffon later argued for further separations in nature that he had not accepted in 1749 because he considered new empirical evidence. This evidence came from seeing how “we have altered, modified and changed the species of domestic animals” thereby creating “physical and real genera” (Ibid, pp.407) leading him to conclude that divisions could exist within species.
In order to understand why Buffon chose to defend his own natural history as a science and to distinguish it from all previous systems of taxonomy, in contrast to Linnaeus, who “proceeded with his systemization of nature as if Buffon had never existed,” (Sloan, 1976, pp.360) we now need to look at the difference in contexts between the two naturalists.
Buffon and the Histoire Naturelle.
I believe that the reasons Buffon chose to address Locke’s criticism of taxonomy are related to the status of natural history in 18th century France. Buffon wished to secure the status of natural history and to alter his own prospects by converting the Jardin du Roi from a royal medical garden into an establishment primarily involved in natural history. In order to do this Buffon needed to succeed in convincing an aristocratic society and his Royal patron.
During the 18th century, natural history was an activity predominantly performed by amateurs. Naturalists, including Buffon, were dependent upon both wealthy patrons to fund their research and on the interest of an aristocratic society, which was important in extending the patronage system. The interest of the elite also allowed naturalists to make money by “lecturing, curating, collecting and teaching” (Spary, 2000, pp.20), or from self publication.
It was not until the 1770s that professional chairs for naturalists begun to appear in France. This was around the same time the Jardin du Roi, which began as a small medical garden, was acknowledged as an establishment for natural history (Ibid, pp.16). This occurred after years of change brought on by Buffon who became the Keeper of the garden in 1739 and begun converting it into “the world’s foremost center for natural history” (Ibid, pp.15), expanding the garden and adding many new plants and trees as well as a maze.
Buffon’s success was helped by the monetary value that was placed upon objects of natural investigation, precious stones, skeletons and rare plants for example, were considerably difficult to attain. These became popular because “collections could demonstrate the owner’s power to move objects at a distance, to control the rare and unusual” (Ibid, pp.22). Buffon therefore wanted to offer the Jardin as “a policed setting in which royal glory could be displayed” (Ibid, pp.19), thereby appealing to the attraction that such displays would have for an aristocratic society.
Buffon continued this campaign with the publication of the Histoire Naturelle which should be understood partly as a devise to convince the King and aristocratic society that natural history was a science distinct from medicine. The particular argument that Buffon used to defend natural history, which I have outlined above, was a philosophical argument which played on the intuition that taxonomic natural history was not a distinct science. By addressing this problem Buffon could then distinguish his natural history as being the only theory based on physical truths and hence certain knowledge. The sheer quantity of work he then produced recategorizing nature made it necessary to own his work in order to possess a real scientific knowledge of species.
The Histoire Naturelle was marketed specifically to the aristocracy through its expense. This meant that it was only the elite who could critically analysis his work and was reflected in the fact that “nobles and the clergy were heavily, sometimes predominantly, represented” at lectures held at the Jardin (Ibid, pp.24). Buffon attempted to convince the king to take natural history seriously by making his book an elegant display for modern knowledge. Full of illustrations on “engraved and sometimes hand painted plates” (Ibid, pp.25) and with a largely descriptive content it reflected the nature of the Jardin as a demonstration of royal power.
The fact that Buffon’s natural history was adopted as the natural history of the elite insured its success. This is evident in the fact that the Histoire Naturelle was “adjudged a literary masterpiece” (Ibid, pp 17) and several new royal posts arose for naturalists (Spary, 2000, pp.16 and Brockliss, 1997). Buffon was elected to the French Academy in 1753 (Spary, 2000, pp.28) and his success was insured until the French Revolution in 1789 (Ibid, pp.18).
Linnaeus’ taxonomy.
Carl Linnaeus came from an entirely different background to Buffon, he was not personally motivated to defend natural history as a science because he was trained as a medical doctor and showed little interest in the exact sciences. He was also not motivated to do so in order to succeed because Linnaeus aimed his taxonomy at a different audience to Buffon and was successful because of the practicality of his taxonomy.
Linnaeus did not live within the same aristocratic culture that Buffon did, growing up in a “sleepy little town” (Koerner, 1996, pp.146) in south Sweden he was mostly self taught, “read no modern language, and lacked both general culture and the ‘new science’” (Ibid, pp.145). Even after becoming a highly successful author and gaining lucrative success as a governmental advisor on “voyages, collection, and colonial economies” (Ibid, pp.152), Linnaeus never displayed an interest in the exact sciences or modern technologies. He believed that science should be viewed more as a reflection of the harmony of nature and this was demonstrated in how he decorated his home. Linnaeus created an emporium where “art and organic nature, parrots and squirrels, and even a young orangutan, played among potted plants, insect specimens, mineral samples, scientific instruments, and herbarium sheets” (Ibid, pp.153).
Linnaeus’s career was also never dependant upon separating the two disciplines of natural history and medicine, as Buffon’s was. After receiving a degree in medicine Linnaeus began working in the Uppsala botanic garden, where by 1741 he had gained a chair at the university in the Faculty of Medicine. It was here in 1731 that he begun to develop and publish catalogues based on his own taxonomy. Linnaeus was not dependant on an aristocratic audience and aimed his catalogues at “both learned and lay people” (Ibid, pp.148). These catalogues “spelled out botanical practices to the novice…teaching the reader how to set up a herbarium, organize and excursion, plant a garden, and even embark on a voyage of discovery” (Ibid, pp.148). Linnaeus’ books were “brief enough to be read with ease and small enough to carry into the field” and his taxonomy was based only upon “a few, easily observable features” (Ibid, pp.147-148).
Linnaeus also wrote in a plain style, “opposed to all things courtly and French” (Ibid, pp.155). His early taxonomies were comprised of diagnostic phrase names, however they were soon recognized to be impractical, this was because with every new species added all of its congeners needed to be renamed which sometimes resulted in renaming entire kingdoms. By the 1740s Linnaeus and his students begun to make up their own abbreviations, “experimenting with communal, and more practical, ways of referring to individual species” (Ibid, pp.150). In 1751, Linnaeus begun to use binomial names representing the genus and species. These were inspired by “Renaissance herbals”, “folk names” and “bibliographical references” (Ibid, pp.150). Linnaeus’s taxonomy encapsulated Aristotelian Physics and Christian theology (Ibid, pp.149), it made botany possible for the lay man and was incredibly successful because of its practicality and its ease of use. The popularity of Linnaeus’s taxonomy was reflected in the numerous botanical dictionaries that were published based on his terms and the fact that “even species monographs and children’s books…used a Linnaean vocabulary” (Ibid, pp 154).
The different contexts in which Buffon and Linnaeus worked led them to make vastly different claims about nature. The practical success of Linnaeus’s taxonomy and that fact that his views were dominant again in Paris after the revolution, (Sloan, 1976, pp. 357) has often lead people to claim that Buffon’s attacks were misconceived - the fact that he did not recognize the usefulness of Linnaeus’s system showed just out of touch he really was. However, when we look at Buffon’s work from the perspective of someone wishing to defend natural history as a science through philosophical arguments, these issues become far less important. The usefulness of Linnaeus’s system is of no consequence to Buffon because by his definition this cannot constitute knowledge.
References.
Comte de Buffon, G.L.L. (1749) Histoire naturelle, excract of ‘Premier discours’, in ‘From Natural History to the History of Nature: Readings from Buffon and His Critics’, Lyon, J. and Sloan, P. (tr.), University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1981 ed.
Koerner, L. (1996) ‘Carl Linnaeus in his time and place’, in ‘Cultures of Natural History’, Jardine, N., Secord, J. and Spary, E.C. (eds.), pp.145-16.
Locke, J. (1690) ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’, vol. II, Essay IV, Dover Publications, Dover, 1959 ed.
Sloan, P. R. (1976) ‘The Buffon-Linneaus Controvacy’, Isis, vol. 67, pp.356-375.
Spary, E.C. (2000) ‘The Place of the Histoire naturelle at the Jardin du Roi’, in ‘Utopia’s Garden’, pp.15-48.
Brockliss, L and Jones, C. (1997) ‘The Medical World of Early Modern France’, Clarendon, Oxford.
http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Buffon%20Histoire%20Naturelle.html
http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Linnaeus%20taxonomy.html
LLOYD
Over 100 years before Darwin published ‘The Origin of the Species’ there was huge controversy over how species should be defined. In 1749, Comte de Buffon, published the Histoire naturelle. where he criticised the most popular system of taxonomy of the time, particularly systems similar to those of Linnaeus, who had presented a global classification of nature in Systema naturae in 1735. This contained an arbitrary system of taxonomy with animals grouped by “broad and variable characteristics, such as their teeth, locomotion, type of blood, if any, and habitual home” (Koerner, 1996, pp147).
Buffon is particularly critical of Linnaeus because he claims that in “wishing to judge the whole by a single part” (Buffon, 1749, pp106) he is intentionally going against what Buffon would consider the most natural system. Linnaeus did not see his arbitrary system as a problem because he did not think that arbitrary and natural systems were mutually exclusive. Instead, Linnaeus believed that only when his artificial system was complete would “the regularities of nature’s diversity” (Ibid, pp 148) reveal themselves.
Buffon does not consider that taxonomy this artificial could be instrumental in finding a natural system and so by ignoring nature Linnaeus is moving further and further from the truth. Buffon highlights the artificial nature of Linnaeus’s singular taxonomy with examples of classes containing plants as different as “the elm and the carrot” and “the rose and the strawberry” (Buffon, pp 105). Buffon suggests that instead, we should judge creatures based on their whole morphology not just singular parts. Individuals are of the same species only if they “resemble each other exactly, or if the differences between them are so small that they can only be perceived with difficulty” (Ibid, pp 106).
Buffon also believes that “in nature only individuals exist, while…classes only exist in our imagination”. Linnaeus’s system could therefore have “been more accurate and less arbitrary” (Ibid, pp 115) had it comprised of more divisions, as this would be more reflective of the unbroken continuum of individuals in nature. By the mid 1760s Buffon had begun to extend his taxonomy into genera and families contradicting his earlier statement that he would only recognize the categorization of species (Sloan, P. pp 357). To understand why this is coherent with his earlier claims I will now look at Sloan’s interpretation of Buffon’s argument.
Sloan’s interpretation, defending taxonomy as a science.
Sloan interprets Buffon’s attack on Linnaeus “primarily in terms of a broader philosophical issue raised…by Locke’s empiricist epistemology” (Sloan, 1976, pp.358). Locke’s epistemology could be used to argue that taxonomy should not be considered a science because the only true knowledge we can have is of our immediate ideas and sensations. Locke’s criticism therefore threatened the status of natural history as a science.
In order to defend natural history from Locke’s scepticism Buffon offers a new epistemology based on mathematical and physical truths. Mathematical truths are “only truths of definition…and have no reality” (Buffon, 1749, pp.23-24). These are to be contrasted with physical truths that have “a probability so great that it is equal to a certitude” (Ibid, pp.24). Physical truths are acquired by witnessing “a frequent repetition and uninterrupted succession of the same event” (Ibid, pp 24). Buffon’s criticism of Linnaeus is therefore that his system is not formed from physical truths, which are based on the best available empirical evidence.
Buffon later argued for further separations in nature that he had not accepted in 1749 because he considered new empirical evidence. This evidence came from seeing how “we have altered, modified and changed the species of domestic animals” thereby creating “physical and real genera” (Ibid, pp.407) leading him to conclude that divisions could exist within species.
In order to understand why Buffon chose to defend his own natural history as a science and to distinguish it from all previous systems of taxonomy, in contrast to Linnaeus, who “proceeded with his systemization of nature as if Buffon had never existed,” (Sloan, 1976, pp.360) we now need to look at the difference in contexts between the two naturalists.
Buffon and the Histoire Naturelle.
I believe that the reasons Buffon chose to address Locke’s criticism of taxonomy are related to the status of natural history in 18th century France. Buffon wished to secure the status of natural history and to alter his own prospects by converting the Jardin du Roi from a royal medical garden into an establishment primarily involved in natural history. In order to do this Buffon needed to succeed in convincing an aristocratic society and his Royal patron.
During the 18th century, natural history was an activity predominantly performed by amateurs. Naturalists, including Buffon, were dependent upon both wealthy patrons to fund their research and on the interest of an aristocratic society, which was important in extending the patronage system. The interest of the elite also allowed naturalists to make money by “lecturing, curating, collecting and teaching” (Spary, 2000, pp.20), or from self publication.
It was not until the 1770s that professional chairs for naturalists begun to appear in France. This was around the same time the Jardin du Roi, which began as a small medical garden, was acknowledged as an establishment for natural history (Ibid, pp.16). This occurred after years of change brought on by Buffon who became the Keeper of the garden in 1739 and begun converting it into “the world’s foremost center for natural history” (Ibid, pp.15), expanding the garden and adding many new plants and trees as well as a maze.
Buffon’s success was helped by the monetary value that was placed upon objects of natural investigation, precious stones, skeletons and rare plants for example, were considerably difficult to attain. These became popular because “collections could demonstrate the owner’s power to move objects at a distance, to control the rare and unusual” (Ibid, pp.22). Buffon therefore wanted to offer the Jardin as “a policed setting in which royal glory could be displayed” (Ibid, pp.19), thereby appealing to the attraction that such displays would have for an aristocratic society.
Buffon continued this campaign with the publication of the Histoire Naturelle which should be understood partly as a devise to convince the King and aristocratic society that natural history was a science distinct from medicine. The particular argument that Buffon used to defend natural history, which I have outlined above, was a philosophical argument which played on the intuition that taxonomic natural history was not a distinct science. By addressing this problem Buffon could then distinguish his natural history as being the only theory based on physical truths and hence certain knowledge. The sheer quantity of work he then produced recategorizing nature made it necessary to own his work in order to possess a real scientific knowledge of species.
The Histoire Naturelle was marketed specifically to the aristocracy through its expense. This meant that it was only the elite who could critically analysis his work and was reflected in the fact that “nobles and the clergy were heavily, sometimes predominantly, represented” at lectures held at the Jardin (Ibid, pp.24). Buffon attempted to convince the king to take natural history seriously by making his book an elegant display for modern knowledge. Full of illustrations on “engraved and sometimes hand painted plates” (Ibid, pp.25) and with a largely descriptive content it reflected the nature of the Jardin as a demonstration of royal power.
The fact that Buffon’s natural history was adopted as the natural history of the elite insured its success. This is evident in the fact that the Histoire Naturelle was “adjudged a literary masterpiece” (Ibid, pp 17) and several new royal posts arose for naturalists (Spary, 2000, pp.16 and Brockliss, 1997). Buffon was elected to the French Academy in 1753 (Spary, 2000, pp.28) and his success was insured until the French Revolution in 1789 (Ibid, pp.18).
Linnaeus’ taxonomy.
Carl Linnaeus came from an entirely different background to Buffon, he was not personally motivated to defend natural history as a science because he was trained as a medical doctor and showed little interest in the exact sciences. He was also not motivated to do so in order to succeed because Linnaeus aimed his taxonomy at a different audience to Buffon and was successful because of the practicality of his taxonomy.
Linnaeus did not live within the same aristocratic culture that Buffon did, growing up in a “sleepy little town” (Koerner, 1996, pp.146) in south Sweden he was mostly self taught, “read no modern language, and lacked both general culture and the ‘new science’” (Ibid, pp.145). Even after becoming a highly successful author and gaining lucrative success as a governmental advisor on “voyages, collection, and colonial economies” (Ibid, pp.152), Linnaeus never displayed an interest in the exact sciences or modern technologies. He believed that science should be viewed more as a reflection of the harmony of nature and this was demonstrated in how he decorated his home. Linnaeus created an emporium where “art and organic nature, parrots and squirrels, and even a young orangutan, played among potted plants, insect specimens, mineral samples, scientific instruments, and herbarium sheets” (Ibid, pp.153).
Linnaeus’s career was also never dependant upon separating the two disciplines of natural history and medicine, as Buffon’s was. After receiving a degree in medicine Linnaeus began working in the Uppsala botanic garden, where by 1741 he had gained a chair at the university in the Faculty of Medicine. It was here in 1731 that he begun to develop and publish catalogues based on his own taxonomy. Linnaeus was not dependant on an aristocratic audience and aimed his catalogues at “both learned and lay people” (Ibid, pp.148). These catalogues “spelled out botanical practices to the novice…teaching the reader how to set up a herbarium, organize and excursion, plant a garden, and even embark on a voyage of discovery” (Ibid, pp.148). Linnaeus’ books were “brief enough to be read with ease and small enough to carry into the field” and his taxonomy was based only upon “a few, easily observable features” (Ibid, pp.147-148).
Linnaeus also wrote in a plain style, “opposed to all things courtly and French” (Ibid, pp.155). His early taxonomies were comprised of diagnostic phrase names, however they were soon recognized to be impractical, this was because with every new species added all of its congeners needed to be renamed which sometimes resulted in renaming entire kingdoms. By the 1740s Linnaeus and his students begun to make up their own abbreviations, “experimenting with communal, and more practical, ways of referring to individual species” (Ibid, pp.150). In 1751, Linnaeus begun to use binomial names representing the genus and species. These were inspired by “Renaissance herbals”, “folk names” and “bibliographical references” (Ibid, pp.150). Linnaeus’s taxonomy encapsulated Aristotelian Physics and Christian theology (Ibid, pp.149), it made botany possible for the lay man and was incredibly successful because of its practicality and its ease of use. The popularity of Linnaeus’s taxonomy was reflected in the numerous botanical dictionaries that were published based on his terms and the fact that “even species monographs and children’s books…used a Linnaean vocabulary” (Ibid, pp 154).
The different contexts in which Buffon and Linnaeus worked led them to make vastly different claims about nature. The practical success of Linnaeus’s taxonomy and that fact that his views were dominant again in Paris after the revolution, (Sloan, 1976, pp. 357) has often lead people to claim that Buffon’s attacks were misconceived - the fact that he did not recognize the usefulness of Linnaeus’s system showed just out of touch he really was. However, when we look at Buffon’s work from the perspective of someone wishing to defend natural history as a science through philosophical arguments, these issues become far less important. The usefulness of Linnaeus’s system is of no consequence to Buffon because by his definition this cannot constitute knowledge.
References.
Comte de Buffon, G.L.L. (1749) Histoire naturelle, excract of ‘Premier discours’, in ‘From Natural History to the History of Nature: Readings from Buffon and His Critics’, Lyon, J. and Sloan, P. (tr.), University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1981 ed.
Koerner, L. (1996) ‘Carl Linnaeus in his time and place’, in ‘Cultures of Natural History’, Jardine, N., Secord, J. and Spary, E.C. (eds.), pp.145-16.
Locke, J. (1690) ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’, vol. II, Essay IV, Dover Publications, Dover, 1959 ed.
Sloan, P. R. (1976) ‘The Buffon-Linneaus Controvacy’, Isis, vol. 67, pp.356-375.
Spary, E.C. (2000) ‘The Place of the Histoire naturelle at the Jardin du Roi’, in ‘Utopia’s Garden’, pp.15-48.
Brockliss, L and Jones, C. (1997) ‘The Medical World of Early Modern France’, Clarendon, Oxford.
http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Buffon%20Histoire%20Naturelle.html
http://www.thestargarden.co.uk/Linnaeus%20taxonomy.html
LLOYD
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