- Duchesneau , François . 1979 . Haller et les théories de Buffon et C. F. Wolff sur l'épigenèse . History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences , 1 : 65 – 100 . Timothy Lenoir, ‘The Göttingen School and the Development of Transcendental Naturphilosophie in the Romantic Era’, Studies in the History of Biology, 5 (1981), 111–205 (pp. 119–24, 129–32, 134–35); Shirley A. Roe, Matter, Life and Generation: Eighteenth-Century Embryology and the Haller-Wolff Debate (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 26–32; Phillip R. Sloan, ‘Buffon, German Biology, and the Historical Interpretation of Biological Species’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 12 (1979), 109–53.
- Thomas Jefferson to Dugald Stewart, 21 June 1789, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson et al. Princeton 1950- 19 204 205 continuing XV (p. 204).
- The text of Smith's letter is included in Smith Adam Essays on Philosophical Subjects Wightman W.P.D. Bryce J.C. Ross I.S. Oxford 1980 242 254 For a very useful survey of the intellectual relations between France and Scotland in the Enlightenment see J. H. Brumfitt, ‘Scotland and the French Enlightenment’, in The Age of Enlightenment: Studies Presented to Theodore Besterman. edited by W. H. Barber et al. (Edinburgh and London, 1967), pp. 318–29.
- 1754 . Abstract of Some Statutes and Orders of King's College in Old Aberdeen. With Additions 13 – 13 . Aberdeen 20–21; ‘Statistical Account of the University and King's College of Aberdeen’, in The Statistical Account of Scotland 1791–1799, edited by Sir John Sinclair, 20 vols (Wakefield, 1983; first edition 1791–99), i, 285; [Alexander Gerard], Plan of Education in the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen, With the Reasons of it (Aberdeen, 1755), pp. 28–30; ‘Statistical Account of the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen’, in Statistical Account, I, 328.
- The most notable societies of the Aberdeen Enlightenment were the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, the Gordon's Mill Farming Club, and the Aberdeen Musical Society. For discussions of their membership and activities see Wood P.B. Thomas Reid, Natural Philosopher: A Study of Science and Philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment University of Leeds 1984 86 91 unpublished Ph.D. dissertation 116–19; W. R. Humphries, ‘The First Aberdeen Philosophical Society’, Transactions of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, 5 (1938), 203–38; J. H. Smith, The Gordon's Mill Farming Club 1758–1764 (Edinburgh and London, 1962); David Johnson, Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth-Century (London, 1972), pp. 14, 43–44. On the Aberdeen Philosophical Society see also John Lough, ‘The Relations of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society (1758–73) with France’, Aberdeen University Review, 30 (1942–44), 144–50. On the Aberdeen Enlightenment more generally, the most important study is Roger Emerson, ‘The Enlightenment & Social Structures’, in City & Society in the 18th Century, edited by P. Fritz and D. Williams (Toronto, 1973), pp. 99–124.
- Only fragments of Reid's King's College lectures on the mind are extant, so that the earliest documentary evidence we have about his treatment of abstraction and classification comes from his Glasgow period (1764–96). A lecture dated 12 December 1765 is headed ‘Of Dividing & Classing Things. & Of Compounding’; see AUL MS 2131/4/II/12, fol. 2r. On the textual relationship between the published Essays and his prelections see Reid Thomas Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man Edinburgh 1785 vi vi
- Reid . Essays 458 – 458 . see also p. 467.
- Phillip Sloan has noted that other eighteenth-century naturalists made similar claims in reply to Buffon; see Sloan Phillip R. The Buffon-Linnaeus Controversy Isis 1976 67 356 375 (p. 361).
- Reid . Essays 445 – 471 .
- Reid . Essays 457 – 457 . see also p. 467.
- Reid . Essays 435 – 435 . see also pp. 464–65.
- Reid . Essays 466 – 471 . Compare here a passage in Reid's natural theology lectures; see George Baird, ‘Notes from the Lectures of Dr Thomas Reid 1779–80’, 8 vols, The Mitchell Library Glasgow, MS A 104929, v. 55–56. For Buffon's estimate of the ancients and his comparison of systems to dictionaries see George Louis LeClerc, Comte de Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière, Avec La Description Du Cabinet De Roi, 44 vols (Paris, 1749–1804), I, 24, 41–50.
- Reid . Essays 469 – 469 .
- Sloan . 1976 . The Buffon-Linnaeus Controversy . Isis , 67 : 359 – 359 .
- For a succinct statement of Reid's position see Reid to Lord Kames, 16 December 1780, in The Works of Thomas Reid, D.D. , eighth edition Hamilton William Edinburgh and London 1895 2 56 60 I For Buffon's view see Histoire Naturelle, I, 57.
- Reid to James Gregory, undated, in Reid Works I 76 79 (p.77).
- On Reid's Newtonian style and his researches in the physical sciences see Wood Thomas Reid, Natural Philsopher: A Study of Science and Philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment University of Leeds 1984 86 91 chapter IV.
- Reid , Thomas . 1765 . An Inquiry into the Human Mind, On the Principles of Common Sense , second edition 3 – 3 . Edinburgh corrected
- Buffon . Histoire Naturelle , I 68 – 68 . 95–97.
- AUL MS 2131/3/II/14, fol. 2r. Buffon was attacked for his view of the age of the earth in a review of the Histoire published in the Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques for 6 February 1750; see From Natural History to the History of Nature: Readings from Buffon and His Critics Lyon John Sloan Phillip R. Notre Dame and London 1981 243 244
- For Buffon's comments see Histoire Naturelle I 78 79 98–99, 131–32; the last passage cited here would have been especially contentious. On the role of Buffon's theory of the earth in the rise of materialism and scientific naturalism in the eighteenth century see Aram Vartanian, Diderot and Descartes: A Study of Scientific Naturalism in the Enlightenment (Princeton, 1953), pp. 110–16.
- On the development of Reid's response to Hume and the theory of ideas in the 1750s and early 1760s see Wood Thomas Reid, Natural Philosopher: A Study of Science and Philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment University of Leeds 1984 80 84 unpublished Ph.D. dissertation 98–102, 107–16.
- I have discussed Reid's reactions to the materialist canon in Thomas Reid's Critique of Joseph Priestley: Context and Chronology Man and Nature: Proceedings of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Jory David H. Stewart-Robertson Charles Edmonton 1985 IV 29 45 in
- For Reid's estimate of Descartes and Leibniz see Reid Essays 133 136 222–25, and Peter Kivy, Thomas Reid's Lectures on the Fine Arts (The Hague, 1973), pp. 28–29. Reid explicitly attacked iatromechanism in his Glasgow pneumatology lectures, and in his Aberdeen natural history prelections he set out to demonstrate that the ‘Origin of Motion in the human Body … is not Mechanical’, using as his source Robert Whytt's Essay on the Vital and other Involuntary Motions in Animals (1751); see Kivy, Reid's Lectures, p. 26, and AUL MS 2131/7/II/17, fol. 1r. Reid's view of the inadequacies of iatromechanism owed much to Whytt and John Gregory.
- Buffon . Histoire Naturelle , II 33 – 33 . 37–41, 43–53, 420–26. There is a sizeable literature on Buffon's theory of generation, but two studies stand out: Jacques Roger, Les Sciences de la Vie dans la Pensée Française du XVIIIe Siècle: La Génération des Animaux de Descartes a l'Encyclopédie, second edition (Paris, 1971), pp. 542–58; Peter J. Bowler, ‘Bonnet and Buffon: Theories of Generation and the Problem of Species’, Journal of the History of Biology, 6 (1973), 259–81.
- Reid . Inquiry , 370 – 371 . see also Reid to Lord Kames, 1 October 1775, in Reid, Works, I, 52–53 (p. 53), and AUL MS 2131/6/V/34, fol. 1r.
- Buffon . Histoire Naturelle , II 261 – 262 .
- Stewart , John . 1754 . “ Some Remarks on the Laws of Motion, and the Inertia of Matter ” . In Essays and Observations, Physical and Literary. Read before a Society in Edinburgh, and published by them 70 – 140 . Edinburgh in (p. 72).
- Collins , Anthony . 1711 . Reflections on Mr. Clark's Second Defence of His Letter to Mr. Dodwell , second edition 25 – 25 . London corrected
- Reid to Lord Kames, undated, AUL MS 2131/3/III/3; see also the published version of this letter in Reid Works I 53 54
- Reid . Essays , 621 – 621 .
- Buffon . Histoire Naturelle , II 33 – 33 .
- Buffon's Scottish translator William Smellie perceived Buffon in similar terms; see de Buffon Count Natural History, General and Particular Edinburgh 1780 8 xiin xiiin [translated by William Smellie] I
- Baird, ‘Notes’, v, 98; compare Reid Essays 631 631 where Reid does not explicitly accuse Maupertius and Buffon of a ‘tendency to Atheism’.
- Buffon . Histoire Naturelle , II 32 – 33 .
- AUL MS 2131/4/I/29, pp. 6–8; Reid to Lord Kames, undated, AUL MS 2131/3/III/3, fol. 2v. Compare here his dismissal of theories of generation in Reid Inquiry 3 3 Adam Smith too remarked on the hypothetical character of Buffon's theory of generation; Smith, Essays, p. 248.
- See especially Buffon's Discours Sur la nature des Animaux Histoire Naturelle Buffon IV 3 110 (pp. 22–24, 29–30, 36–41, 55–61, 86–90, 103–104).
- That Reid was uneasy with Buffon's position is suggested by the fact that the notes he took from volume three of the Histoire are taken up exclusively with Buffon's description of the differences between the faculties of man and animals. See AUL MS 2131/6/V/12, fol. 2v and 6/V/35, fol. 1r–v; although these manuscripts have been listed separately, they constitute one continuous text. The Cartesian concept of animals as machines was much debated in eighteenth-century Aberdeen. Descartes's view was being repudiated by at least some of the faculty at Marischal College as early as 1705, and Reid's Regent at Marischal, George Turnbull, touched on this issue in his lectures. See King Christine M. Philosophy and Science in the Arts Curriculum of the Scottish Universities in the 17th Century University of Edinburgh 1974 140 140 (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation and George Turnbull, De Scientiae naturalis Philosophia morali conjunctione (Aberdeen, 1723), p. 8. Shortly after Reid left Aberdeen for Glasgow, the Wise Club considered the question ‘Whether Brutes have Souls & if they have, in what do they differ from Human souls?’, which had been proposed by David Skene. The abstract of their discussion survives in AUL MS 37, fol. 185 r–v. It may be that Skene's question was prompted in part by Buffon's comparison of animals and man, but Buffon is not named or alluded to in the abstract.
- Farley , John . 1977 . The Spontaneous Generation Controversy from Descartes to Oparin 18 – 29 . Baltimore and London
- Skene , David . Discourses on Natural History 16 – 19 . AUL MS 480 32. On page 27 Skene also made the rather different claim that botanical systems increase the reliability and certainty of our knowledge of plants.
- Skene , David . Discourses on Natural History 22 – 30 . AUL MS 480
- David Skene to John Ellis, 17 AUL MS 38, fol. 168r 1768 October
- Skene . Discourses 83 – 90 . Sloan (footnote 13), p. 370. Reid too linked species with reproduction; Reid, Essays, p. 468.
- For Skene's estimate of Linnaeus see ‘Discourses’, p. 2, his letter to John Ellis cited in note 63 above, fol. 168r, and, on a more critical note, AUL MS 479/1 and 2. These items are entitled ‘Objections to the Linnaean System of Botany' and ‘Uncertainty of the Linnaean System’ respectively. Like Ellis, Skene corresponded with Linnaeus; part of their correspondence is printed in Thomson Alexander Biographical Sketch of David Skene, M. D., of Aberdeen; with Extracts from Correspondence between Dr Skene and Linnaeus and John Ellis, about the Year 1765 Edinburgh 1859 11 14
- Skene's researches on coal are described in Lenman B.P. Kenworthy J.B. Dr David Skene, Linnaeus, and the Applied Geology of the Scottish Enlightenment Aberdeen University Review 1977–78 47 32 44 and idem., ‘Dr. David Skene and the Applied Geology of the Scottish Enlightenment II: Skene's Study of Contemporary Coalmining Practice’, Aberdeen University Review, 47 (1977–78), 231–37; the quotation appears on page 40. It is significant that in a letter to the London virtuoso John Strange written c. 1770, James Hutton refers to Skene as ‘my friend’; see V. A. and Joan M. Eyles, ‘Some Geological Correspondence of James Hutton’, Annals of Science, 7 (1951), 316–39 (p. 329). Although the Eyles identify the Skene referred to as the Marischal Professor of Natural Philosophy, Dr. George Skene, David Skene is a much more likely candidate because he had stronger connections with Edinburgh naturalists, and, like Hutton, he was a member of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society. I would like to thank Mrs. Jean Jones for bringing the Hutton letter to my attention.
- AUL MS 475 248 – 248 .
- The most energetic new faculty member was Patrick Copland, who was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at Marischal College in 1775. For a description of his activities see Reid John S. Patrick Copland 1748–1822: Aspects of his Life and Times at Marischal College Aberdeen University Review 1984–85 54 359 379
- Notes taken by William Knight from Beattie's lectures in 1799–1800 have survived. See ‘Institutes of Natural History’, 2 vols bound in 1, AUL MS M. 189. Beattie appears to have modelled his course on that given by the Edinburgh Professor of Natural History, John Walker, for which see Walker John Lectures on Geology [sic] Scott Harold W. Chicago and London 1966
- Beattie . Institutes , II 7 – 7 . 21–23, 41.
- Beattie . Institutes , II 227 – 229 . see also I, 17, where Beattie briefly remarks on Buffon's critique of taxonomy, and II, 139, where he notes Buffon's classification of mammals. Beattie's recommendation of Smellie's translation is the earliest indication I have yet found that Aberdeen readers were using this edition. The Aberdeen men discussed above all consulted original French editions, so that their response to the Histoire was unmediated by Smellie's text. It is arguable, therefore, that Smellie's translation did not shape Aberdeen perceptions of Buffon to any great extent, since the Aberdonians had worked out their interpretation of the basic thrust of the Histoire prior to the publication of Smellie's version.
- Buffon . Histoire Naturelle , IV 90 – 95 . (p. 95).
- Scott , Robert Eden . The Elements of General Natural History for the Semi-Class 1795–6 . AUL MS K. , 182 16 – 47 . (geology), and 104–10 (on the animal and vegetable kingdoms). In the latter section (pages 108–10), Scott rejected Buffon's view that the vegetable and animal kingdoms were indistinguishable.
- Scott , Robert Eden . The Elements of General Natural History for the Semi-Class 1795–6 . AUL MS K. , 182 18 – 21 .
- Scott , Robert Eden . The Elements of General Natural History for the Semi-Class 1795–6 . AUL MS K. , 182 29 – 29 .
- Scott , Robert Eden . The Elements of General Natural History for the Semi-Class 1795–6 . AUL MS K. , 182 47 – 48 .
- On the reaction to Hutton's theory of the earth see Davies G.L. The Earth in Decay: A History of British Geomorphology 1578 to 1878 New York 1969 185 190 Steven A. Shapin, ‘The Royal Society of Edinburgh: A Study of the Social Context of Hanoverian Science’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1971), pp. 236–44; Dennis R. Dean, ‘James Hutton and His Public, 1785–1802’, Annals of Science, 30 (1973), 89–105.
- AUL MS 3107/5/3/4. pp. 10–14. Scott cited Condorcet's Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Progrès de l'Esprit Humain 1795 on page 10 of the oration.
- Scott . Elements insert before p. 16, dated 1798. On the other side of the insert there is an entry dated 1795 on cosmogony.
- The basic study of the reactions of Scottish men of science to the French Revolution is Morell J.B. Professors Robison and Playfair, and the Theophobia Gallica: Natural Philosophy, Religion and Politics in Edinburgh, 1789–1815 Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 1971 26 43 63 See also P. B. Wood, ‘The Hagiography of Common Sense: Dugald Stewart's Account of the Life and Writings of Thomas Reid’, in Philosophy, Its History and Historiography, edited by A. J. Holland (Dordrecht, 1985), pp. 305–22 (pp. 307–9, 313–15).
- For pertinent reflections on this issue see Jordanova L.J. Earth Science and Environmental Medicine: The Synthesis of the Late Enlightenment Images of the Earth: Essays in the History of the Environmental Sciences Jordanova L.J. Porter Roy S. Chalfont St. Giles 1979 119 146 Roy Porter, ‘The Terraqueous Globe’, in The Ferment of Knowledge: Studies in the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century Science, edited by G. S. Rousseau and Roy Porter (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 285–324 (pp. 317-21); Dennis R. Dean, ‘The Word ‘Geology”, Annals of Science, 36 (1979), 35–43; and more generally G. N. Cantor, ‘The Eighteenth-Century Problem’, History of Science, 20 (1982), 44–63. The title given by the editor to John Walker's natural history lectures (cited above in note 72) provides a glaring example of the anachronistic use of twentieth-century categories in describing eighteenth-century texts.
- Apart from Thomas Reid, Linnaeus's system of classification was used by William Ogilvie at King's College and by Francis Skene and James Beattie at Marischal. See what is probably a unique copy of the printed notes on zoology from Ogilvie's natural history course preserved in the Aberdeen Public Library; Francis Skene, ‘An Abridgement of Natural History For the use of the Students in the Marischal College Aberdeen January 1st 1768’, AUL MS M. 177; Beattie, ‘Institutes’, II, 57–73, 81, 223–33. Given the chronology for the acceptance of Linnaean taxonomy in Britain set out by Stafleu, the Aberdonians were among the first to adopt Linnaeus's scheme, and they were among the earliest university men to use it in their teaching; see Stafleu Frans A. Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany 1735–1789 Utrecht 1971 chapter 7.
- Gregory , John . A Proposall for a Medical Society. Written [anno] 1743 2 – 10 . AUL MS 2206–45 (original pagination). Gregory's Wise Club discourses were later published as A Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World (London, 1765). For Gregory's classification of diseases see the notes from his lectures on the practice of physic in, for example, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, MS Add 209 and MS M 9/51–54.
- Reid . Essays , 470 – 470 .
- Reid , Thomas . 1788 . Essays on the Active Powers of Man 97 – 266 . Edinburgh for Reid's remarks on cataloguing the principles of action, see page 102.
- The most recent, and in some ways most impressive, statement of the traditional view is Gay Peter The Enlightenment: An Interpretation London 1970 2 Among Anglo-American scholars Robert Darnton had done most to probe the social context on the Enlightenment; see especially his The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1982). For a very useful introduction to the differing national contexts of enlightenment see The Enlightenment in National Context, edited by Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich (Cambridge, 1981).
- This view of the Scottish Englightenment is brilliantly developed in Sher Richard B. Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh Princeton and Edinburgh 1985 Of course, not all of the Scottish philosophes were sympathetic to Christianity. David Hume, William Cullen, James Hutton, and Adam Smith were all, to varying degrees, at intellectual odds with their colleagues and friends in the Kirk.
- Thomas Reid to Lord Kames, 27 February 1778, in Ross Ian Unpublished Letters of Thomas Reid to Lord Kames, 1762–1782 Texas Studies in Literature and Language 1965 7 17 65 (pp. 31–33; the quotation appears on p.31).
Annals of Science
Volume 44, 1987 - Issue 2