The Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi (French: [istwaʁ natyʁɛl]; English: Natural History, General and Particular, with a Description of the King's Cabinet) is an encyclopaedic collection of 36 large (quarto) volumes written between 1749 and 1804, initially by the Comte de Buffon, and continued in eight more volumes after his death (in 1788) by his colleagues, led by Bernard Germain de Lacépède. The books cover what was known of the "natural sciences" at the time, including what would now be called material science, physics, chemistry and technology as well as the natural history of animals. The early volumes (IV to XV) are on quadrupeds. The next group (XVI to XXIV) are on birds, followed by a group on minerals (XXV to XXIX). There followed a group of supplements on geology and related subjects, with additional quadrupeds (XXX to XXXVI). Further supplements covered the reptiles (XXXVII to XXXVIII) and fishes (XXXIX to XXXXIII). Finally there was a volume on cetaceans (XXXXIV). The work was republished in various editions in France, and was translated into languages including English, German, Swedish, Italian, and Russian. Buffon was assisted over the years by a variety of authors with different expertise, including Philippe Guéneau de Montbeillard on birds. The principal illustrator was Jacques de Sève, who prepared some 2000 plates for the encyclopedia, while additional plates on birds were made by François-Nicolas Martinet. The Histoire Naturelle was welcomed by its wealthy readership: the first edition sold out within six weeks. However, it attracted criticism from some priests for its assertion that the Earth was over 6,000 years old, contradicting the biblical account. From the 21st-century perspective of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the work has been seen as introducing "a secular and realist account of the origins of the earth and its life forms", contrary to the tradition of Descartes. Others such as the botanist Sandra Knapp have commented on Buffon's purple prose, which tended to obscure any ideas in the text. The evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr called Buffon "the father of all thought in natural history" at his time, setting the scene for evolutionists to address the issues he raised.
An encyclopaedic work
The Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi is the work that the Comte de Buffon (1707–1788) is remembered for. He worked on it for some 50 years, initially at Montbard in his office in the Tour Saint-Louis, then in his library at Petit Fontenet. 36 volumes came out between 1749 and 1789, followed by 8 more after his death, thanks to Bernard Germain de Lacépède. It includes all the knowledge available in his time on the "natural sciences", a broad term that includes disciplines which today would be called material science, physics, chemistry and technology. Buffon notes the morphological similarities between men and apes, although he considered apes completely devoid of the ability to think, differentiating them sharply from human beings. Buffon's attention to internal anatomy made him an early comparative anatomist. "L’intérieur, dans les êtres vivants, est le fond du dessin de la nature", he wrote in his Quadrupèdes, "the interior, in living things, is the foundation of nature's design."
L’Histoire Naturelle met immense success, almost as great as Encyclopédie by Diderot, which came out in the same period. The first three volumes of L’Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du cabinet du Roi were reprinted three times in six weeks.
Contents by volume
The original edition was arranged as follows: Natural history, and description of the king's cabinet of curiosities
Volume I : Premier Discours - De la manière d’étudier et de traiter l’histoire naturelle, Second Discours - Histoire et théorie de la Terre, Preuves de la théorie de la Terre, 1749 Volume II : Histoire générale des Animaux, Histoire Naturelle de l'Homme, 1749 Volume III : Description du cabinet du Roi, Histoire Naturelle de l'Homme, 1749 Quadrupèdes (Quadrupeds)
Volume IV (Quadrupèdes I) : Discours sur la nature des Animaux, Les Animaux domestiques, 1753 Volume V (Quadrupèdes II) : 1755 Volume VI (Quadrupèdes III) : Les Animaux sauvages, 1756 Volume VII (Quadrupèdes IV) : Les Animaux carnassiers, 1758 Volume VIII (Quadrupèdes V) : 1760 Volume IX (Quadrupèdes VI) : 1761 Volume X (Quadrupèdes VII) : 1763 Volume XI (Quadrupèdes VIII) : 1764 Volume XII (Quadrupèdes IX) : 1764 Volume XIII (Quadrupèdes X) : 1765 Volume XIV (Quadrupèdes XI) : Nomenclature des Singes, De la dégénération des Animaux, 1766 Volume XV (Quadrupèdes XII) : 1767 Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (Birds) (1770–1783)
Volume XVI (Oiseaux I) : 1770 Volume XVII (Oiseaux II) : 1771 Volume XVIII (Oiseaux III) : 1774 Volume XIX (Oiseaux IV) : 1778 Volume XX (Oiseaux V) : 1778 Volume XXI (Oiseaux VI) : 1779 Volume XXII (Oiseaux VII) : 1780 Volume XXIII (Oiseaux VIII) : 1781 Volume XXIV (Oiseaux IX) : 1783 Histoire Naturelle des Minéraux (Minerals) (1783–1788)
Volume XXV (Minéraux I) : 1783 Volume XXVI (Minéraux II) : 1783 Volume XXVII (Minéraux III) : 1785 Volume XXVIII (Minéraux IV) : 1786 Volume XXIX (Minéraux V) : Traité de l'Aimant et de ses usages, 1788 Suppléments à l’Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière (Supplements) (1774–1789)
Volume XXX (Suppléments I) : Servant de suite à la Théorie de la Terre, et d’introduction à l’Histoire des Minéraux, 1774 Volume XXXI (Suppléments II) : Servant de suite à la Théorie de la Terre, et de préliminaire à l’Histoire des Végétaux - Parties Expérimentale & Hypothétique, 1775 Volume XXXII (Suppléments III) : Servant de suite à l'Histoire des Animaux quadrupèdes, 1776 Volume XXXIII (Suppléments IV) : Servant de suite à l'Histoire Naturelle de l'Homme, 1777 Volume XXXIV (Suppléments V) : Des Époques de la nature, 1779 Volume XXXV (Suppléments VI) : Servant de suite à l'Histoire des Animaux quadrupèdes, 1782 Volume XXXVI (Suppléments VII) : Servant de suite à l'Histoire des Animaux quadrupèdes, 1789 Histoire Naturelle des Quadrupèdes ovipares et des Serpents (Egg-laying Quadrupeds and Snakes) (1788–1789)
Volume XXXVII (Reptiles I) : Histoire générale et particulière des Quadrupèdes ovipares, 1788 Volume XXXVIII (Reptiles II) : Histoire des Serpents, 1789 Histoire Naturelle des Poissons (Fish) (1798–1803)
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
