Georges-Louis Leclerc: Biography And Contributions Of This Naturalist
When we talk about evolutionism, most people think of the face of Charles Darwin and, to a lesser extent, that of Lamarck. These two are the most notable figures in the beginnings of evolutionism, but to be fair they are not the precursors.
There have been others who have presented the idea that species can change over time, either due to environmental factors or the simple passage of generations.
One of the most curious precursors of evolutionism, without being a recognized evolutionary biologist, is Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count of Buffon. Next we are going to learn about his life and his work, in addition to delving into his particular idea of the origin of the human being and the races that according to him make it up, through a biography of Georges-Louis Leclerc
Brief biography of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon
Georges-Louis Leclerc was a French naturalist, botanist, biologist, cosmologist, mathematician and writer Also known as Comte de Buffon, he sought to compile all human knowledge about the natural world of his time in his 36-volume work “Histoire naturelle”, in addition to other volumes produced posthumously. It is said that his approach influenced Diderot’s Encyclopedia and that his ideas on the transformation of species were revealing to subsequent generations of naturalists, especially Georges Cuvier, Jean Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin.
Leclerc’s childhood and adolescence
Georges Louis Leclerc, Count of Buffon, was born in Montbard, Burgundy, on September 7, 1707 He was the son of François Leclerc, a minor local official in charge of the salt tax, and Anne-Christine Marlin. Georges was named after an uncle of his mother Georges Blaisot. In 1714 Blaisot died childless, leaving a generous fortune to Georges-Louis Leclerc when he was only seven years old. Benjamin Leclerc decided to buy a farm that contained the neighboring town of Buffon and moved with his family to Dijon, working in various jobs.
Georges attended the Jesuit College in Dijon at the age of ten. From 1723 to 1726 he studied law in Dijon, a prerequisite for continuing the family tradition of dedicating himself to public service However, in 1728 Georges left Dijon to study mathematics and medicine at the University of Angers. There in 1730 he met the young Duke of Kingston, who was touring Europe, which Leclerc joined and traveled with him on a long and expensive year-long voyage through the southern half of France and some parts of Italy.
There are many rumors about what he did around this time, gossip from that time that claims that the young Georges-Louis Leclerc spent his time between duels and secret trips to England. In 1732, after the death of his mother and before the imminent remarriage of his father, Georges separated from Kingston and returned to Dijon to receive his inheritance.
He had put the “de Buffon” thing on his journey with the Duke of Kingston; He bought back the Buffon villa that his father had previously sold. With a fortune of around 80,000 pounds, Georges-Louis Leclerc moved to Paris to make a place for himself in the science of the time dedicating himself first to mathematics and mechanics, and also with the intention of increasing his fortune.
In 1732 he moved to Paris. In the French capital he would have the opportunity to meet Voltaire himself and other notable intellectuals of the Enlightenment His first known work was a mathematical one titled “Sur le jeu de franc-carreau”, in which he introduced differential and integral calculus applied to probability theory.
In fact, as a result of this work, a mathematical concept was named after him: Buffon’s needle. In 1734 he was admitted to the French Academy of Sciences. During this period he met the Swiss mathematician Gabriel Cramer.
Consolidation of your career as a researcher
In 1739 he was appointed director of the Parisian Jardin du Roi (King’s Garden) with the help of Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas, a position that Leclerc held until the end of his life. Georges-Louis Leclerc stood out for transforming this garden into one of the largest research centers of the time. He also expanded it, buying new plots and acquiring new specimens, both plants and animals, from the most remote places in the world.
Thanks to his skills as a prolific writer, in 1753 he was invited to the Académie Française and, in 1768, He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society In his “Discours sur le style” (“Speech on style”), delivered to the members of the Académie Française he said:
“Writing well consists of thinking, feeling and expressing oneself well, of clarity of mind, soul and taste… The style of the man himself”
Unfortunately for him, Leclerc’s reputation as a literary stylist fueled his detractors’ thirst for criticism among them Jean le Rond D’Alembert who called him “the great dealer in phrases.”
In 1752 Georges-Louis Leclerc married Marie-Françoise de Saint-Belin-Malain , the daughter of an impoverished noble family from Burgundy. Her second child, born in 1764, survived infancy and, in 1769, his wife died.
Last years of life
In 1772 Leclerc fell seriously ill He made his son, who was only 8 years old at the time, promise to succeed him as director of the Jardin du Roi, a promise that became clearly unworkable. The king, Louis
Georges-Louis Leclerc died on April 16, 1788, in Paris. He was buried in a chapel in the church of Sainte-Urse Montbard. During the French Revolution (1789-1799) his tomb was desecrated and the lead covering the coffin was stripped to make bullets. His heart was initially kept, and was kept by Suzanne Necker, Jacques Necker’s wife, but was eventually lost. What is preserved from Mr. Leclerc is his cerebellum, kept at the base of the statue in his honor in 1776, in the Museum of Natural History in Paris.
Main scientific contributions of Georges-Louis Leclerc
One of Buffon’s most notable works is his “Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière” written since 1749, made up of 36 original volumes plus additional ones made from Leclerc’s notes found after his death.
Originally, this work was intended to talk about the three kingdoms of nature that were believed to exist at that time: animal, vegetable and mineral. However, in the end these volumes were limited to covering the animal and mineral kingdom, and the animals he talked about were mostly birds and quadrupeds.
Despite not being the most detailed at the time, his work was written in such a brilliant style that every educated person in Europe got a copy and had the collaboration of great people of his time. Among the people who helped him in its publication were Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, Philibert Guéneau de Montbeillard and Gabriel-Léopold Bexon Leclerc’s “Histoire naturelle” was translated into many languages, making him one of the most read authors of his time, rivaling illustrious contemporary figures such as Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire.
In the first volumes of his Histoire naturelle, criticized Carl von Linné’s taxonomic approach to natural history, and highlighted a history of the Earth with little relationship to biblical theory These volumes were condemned by the Faculty of Theology of the Sorbonne. Buffon published a retraction, although he continued to publish the religiously offensive volumes without any remorse.
Throughout his research into the animal world, Georges-Louis Leclerc realized that, Even having similar climates, regions have distinctive plants and animals, a concept that would later be known as Buffon’s Law , which is considered the first principle of biogeography. Leclerc made the suggestion that species had “better” or “worse” since they dispersed from the center of creation.
In its 14th volume argues that all quadrupeds on Earth have developed from an original set of quadrupeds made up of about 38 species Based on this statement, he is considered by many to be a “transformist”, a defender of the idea that organisms change over time, and therefore could also be considered a precursor of Darwin. He also commented that climate change could have made it easier for certain species to spread to new places far from their place of origin.
One of Buffon’s most controversial theories was when he stated that the nature of the New World was inferior to that of Eurasia He explained that the species in America were smaller and less strong than in the rest of the planet. He also claimed that men in America were less virile than Europeans. He attributed this “inferiority” to the stenches of the swamps and dense forests of the American continent.
These statements were so controversial that they irritated Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, who ordered twenty soldiers to go to the forests of New Hampshire to hunt an elk to send to Leclerc as proof of the grandiose size and majesty of the elks. American quadrupeds.
In his work “Les époques de la nature” (1778), Georges-Louis Leclerc talks about the origins of the Solar System, and speculates that the planets were created from the collision of a comet with the Sun. suggested that the Earth originated long before 4004 BC, the date established by Archbishop James Ussher for the creation of the world according to biblical theory.
De Buffon calculated that the Earth had to be at least 75,000 years old, a statement that caused him to be condemned again by the Sorbonne and he had to recant to avoid major problems. Today we know that it was wrong, since the age of the Earth is believed to be 4,543 billion years.
Studies on races
Georges-Louis Leclerc and Johann Blumenbach firmly believed in monogenism, the idea that all races had a single origin They also believed in the theory of degeneration, that the first human beings, Adam and Eve, were Caucasian and that the other races emerged as a product of the degeneration of their descendants, influenced by environmental factors such as the sun or diet. They thought that this “degeneration” could be reversed if the environmental conditions were favorable to “correct” the defects of other races.
Buffon and Blumenbach related the high pigmentation of people who lived in tropical environments not to the sun itself, but to the heat. They also believed that the cold wind caused the skin to have a tawny appearance, as was the case of the Inuit people. They thought that the relatively white skin of the Chinese was because they lived in villages with houses well protected from environmental conditions. Buffon indicated that diet and lifestyle could also contribute to races “degenerating” and distinguishing themselves from the original Caucasian race.
Buffon He was a supporter of the hypothesis that the origin of the human species was in Asia , considering that the place where our species first appeared was in an area with high temperatures. Believing that good climatic conditions make healthy humans grow, he hypothesized that the most logical place had to be in Asia, probably in the Caspian Sea area.
Its relevance in modern biology
With his chiaroscuros, the figure of Georges-Louis Leclerc has great relevance in modern biology as he comes quite close to the idea that species change over time. In fact, Charles Darwin himself commented in his well-known book “The Origin of Species”, specifically from the fourth edition onwards, that Buffon was the first author in modern times who had treated evolution from a scientific perspective
And the theory of degeneration proposed by Leclerc greatly influenced biologists of the time, despite its moral controversies and obvious scientific racism.
Leclerc cannot be considered an evolutionary biologist, although it could be said that he was the father of evolutionism She was the first person to discuss a large number of questions related to evolution, questions that before Buffon’s appearance had not occurred to anyone. He brought the idea of evolution into the realm of science, without even using that word.
Leclerc proposed the concept of “unity of type”, a precursor idea of comparative anatomy. He is also notable for rejecting the biblical age of the Earth and proposing a greater antiquity for the planet. He highlights his idea of the “struggle for existence” similar to the struggle for survival and Darwinian natural selection.
