The first ever described dinosaur bone fragment in Robinet’s philosophy of nature (1768)

ABSTRACT

Jean- Baptiste-René Robinet was a comparatively little known 18^th Century French philosopher, who is often cited as a pioneer of evolutionary thought. Robinet adopted an all-pervading vitalism (hylozoism): animals and plants, rocks and minerals, metals and stars are all animated, developing in a progressive temporal sequence from pre-existing and preformed germs. Fossils in Robinet’s system are not the remains of once living organisms, but formations sui generis that develop from fossil germs. In their form, many of these figured stones Robinet found to resemble parts of the human body, thus documenting Nature’s march towards the most complex of its creations. Most notorious amongst these figured stones was the first dinosaur bone to have been described and illustrated in print, the distal end of a femur of Megalosaurus, which Robinet famously described as Scrotum humanum. The original attribution of this name to the fossil is most likely due to an error on the part of the illustrator, and does not reflect Brooke’s intentions.

KEYWORDS:

• Robinet
• fossils
• Megalosaurus
• Palaeoloxodon
• evolution

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Marco Romano, who read an earlier draft of the manuscript offering much helpful advise and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

No funding from a grant awarding agency was received in support of this study;No funding was received [0000];