Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire

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Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle

Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (15 April 1772 – 19 June 1844) was a French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He was a colleague of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theories. Geoffroy's scientific views had a transcendental flavor (unlike Lamarck's materialistic views) and were similar to those of German morphologists like Lorenz Oken. He believed in the underlying unity of organismal design, and the possibility of the transmutation of species in time, amassing evidence for his claims through research in comparative anatomy, paleontology, and embryology. He is considered as a predecessor of the evo-devo evolutionary concept.[1][2]

Life and early career

Geoffroy was born at

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, being assigned the chair of zoology. In the same year he busied himself with the formation of a menagerie at that institution.[3]

In 1794, Geoffroy entered into correspondence with

Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, Geoffroy received him into his house. The two friends wrote together five memoirs on natural history, one of which, on the classification of mammals, puts forward the idea of the subordination of characters upon which Cuvier based his zoological system. It was in a paper entitled Histoire des Makis, ou singes de Madagascar, written in 1795, that Geoffroy first gave expression to his views on the unity of organic composition, the influence of which is perceptible in all his subsequent writings; nature, he observes, presents us with only one plan of construction, the same in principle, but varied in its accessory parts.[3]

In 1798, Geoffroy was chosen a member of Napoleon's great scientific expedition to

Napoleon, who had already recognized his national services by the award of the cross of the legion of honor, selected him to visit the museums of Portugal, for the purpose of procuring collections from them, and in the face of considerable opposition from the British he eventually was successful in retaining them as a permanent possession for his country.[5]

Later career

Cours de l'histoire naturelle des mammifères, 1829

In 1809, the year after his return to France, Geoffroy was made professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences at Paris, and from that period he devoted himself more exclusively than before to anatomical study. In 1818 he published the first part of his celebrated Philosophie anatomique, the second volume of which, published in 1822, and subsequent memoirs account for the formation of monstrosities on the principle of arrest of development, and of the attraction of similar parts.[5]

Geoffroy's friend

molluscs.[citation needed] When, in 1830, Geoffroy proceeded to apply to the invertebrata his views as to the unity of animal composition, he found a vigorous opponent in Cuvier, his former friend.[5]

Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville
, 1842

Geoffroy, a synthesiser, contended, in accordance with his theory of unity of plan in organic composition, that all animals are formed of the same elements, in the same number; and with the same connections: homologous parts, however they differ in form and size, must remain associated in the same invariable order. With Johann Wolfgang von Goethe he held that there is in nature a law of compensation or balancing of growth, so that if one organ take on an excess of development, it is at the expense of some other part; and he maintained that, since nature takes no sudden leaps, even organs which are superfluous in any given species, if they have played an important part in other species of the same family, are retained as rudiments, which testify to the permanence of the general plan of creation. It was his conviction that, owing to the conditions of life, the same forms had not been perpetuated since the origin of all things, although it was not his belief that existing species are becoming modified.[5]

Cuvier, who was an analytical observer of facts, admitted only the prevalence of laws of co-existence or harmony in animal organs, and maintained the absolute invariability of species, which he declared had been created with a regard to the circumstances in which they were placed, each organ contrived with a view to the function it had to fulfil, thus putting, in Geoffroy's considerations, the effect for the cause.[5]

In 1836 he coined the term phocomelia.[6] In 1838 he was named an Officer of the Légion d'honneur.[7]

In July 1840, Geoffroy became blind, and some months later he had a paralytic attack. From that time his strength gradually failed him. He resigned his chair at the museum in 1841,[5] and was succeeded by his son, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. He died in 1844 and is buried in Division 19 of the Cimetière du Père Lachaise.[8]

Geoffroy's theory

Geoffroy was a

miracles, and does not interpret the Bible as the literal word of God. These views did not conflict with his naturalistic ideas about organic change.[citation needed
]

Geoffroy's theory was not a theory of

Lamarck believed (for Lamarck, a change in habits is what changes the animal). The direct effect of environment on heritable traits is not believed today to be a central evolutionary force; even Lawrence
knew by 1816 that the climate does not directly cause the major differences between human races.

Geoffroy endorsed a theory of

heterogenesis.[13]

Geoffroy noted that the organization of

dorsal and ventral structures in arthropods is opposite that of mammals. The inversion hypothesis was met with criticism and was rejected, however, some modern molecular embryologists have since resurrected this idea.[14]

Taxa described

Legacy

The Geoffroy's cat (Leopardus geoffroyi) was named in his honour.[15]

Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of South American turtle, Phrynops geoffroanus.[16]

His name is also honoured in that of a number of other species, including Geoffroy's spider monkey,[17] Geoffroy's bat, and Geoffroy's tamarin.

The Catfish Corydoras geoffroy is named after him.[18]

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
.

In popular culture

French author

Le Père Goriot
to Saint-Hilaire, "as a tribute of admiration for his labors and his genius."

Works

  • Cours de l'histoire naturelle des mammifères (in French). Paris: Pichon & Didier. 1829.

See also

Citations

  1. S2CID 42621662
    .
  2. S2CID 243796184
    .
  3. ^ a b Chisholm 1911, p. 618.
  4. ^ Laissus, Yves; Orgogozgo, Chantal (1990). The Discovery of Egypt. Paris: Flammarion. pp. 73-74.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Chisholm 1911, p. 619.
  6. ^ Zimmer, Carl (March 15, 2010). "Answers begin to emerge on how Thalidomide caused defects". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-03-21.
  7. ^ "GEOFFROY SAINT HILAIRE Etienne, Leonore.archives".
  8. ^ "GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE Etienne (1772-1844)". Amis et Passionnés du Père Lachaise (APPL). March 2021.
  9. ^ Mayr, Ernst (1982). The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 262.
  10. ^ Hallgrímsson, Benedikt; Hall, Brian K. (2011). Variation: A Central Concept in Biology. Burlington, Massachusetts: Elsevier Academic Press. p. 18.
  11. ^ Hall, Brian K.; Pearson, Roy D.; Müller, Gerd D. (2004). Environment, Development, and Evolution: Toward a Synthesis. Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p. 9.
  12. ^ Bowler, Peter J. (2003). Evolution: The History of an Idea. Oakland, California: University of California Press. p. 127.
  13. ^ Wright, Sewall (1984). Evolution and the Genetics of Populations: Genetics and Biometric Foundations Volume 1. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. p. 10
  14. ^ Travis, John (1995). "The Ghost of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire: Frog and Fly Genes Revive the Ridiculed Idea that Vertebrates Resemble Upside-Down Insects". Science News 148 (14): 216-218.
  15. ^ D'Orbigny, A.; Gervais, P. (1844). "Mammalogie: Nouvelle espèce de Felis". Extraits des procès-verbaux des séances. 9: 40−41.
  16. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5
    . (Geoffroy, p. 99).
  17. ^ "Spider Monkey Trivia". Spider Monkey Rehab. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
  18. ^ Christopher Scharpf & Kenneth J. Lazara (22 September 2018). "Order SILURIFORMES: Families CALLICHTHYIDAE, SCOLOPLACIDAE and ASTROBLEPIDAE". The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database. Christopher Scharpf and Kenneth J. Lazara. Retrieved 18 January 2023.

General sources

Further reading

External links

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