Bernard Germain de Lacépède
Bernard Germain de Lacépède | |
---|---|
Grand-Croix of the Legion of Honor (1805) | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Natural history |
Institutions | National Museum of Natural History, France |
Bernard-Germain-Étienne de La Ville-sur-Illon, comte de Lacépède or La Cépède (French:
Biography
Lacépède was born at
Meantime he wrote two treatises, Essai sur l'électricité (1781) and Physique générale et particulière (1782–1784), which gained him the friendship of Buffon, who in 1785 appointed him subdemonstrator in the
After the
He died at Épinay-sur-Seine. During the latter part of his life he wrote Histoire générale physique et civile de l'Europe, published posthumously in 18 volumes, 1826.[1]
He was elected perpetual secretary of the French Academy of Sciences at the Institute of France in 1796, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1806 and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1812.[citation needed]
Lacépède was initiated into
Evolution
Lacépède was an early evolutionary thinker. He argued for the transmutation of species. He believed that species change over time and may go extinct from geological cataclysms or become "metamorphosed" into new species.[5] In his book Histoire naturelle des poissons, he wrote:
"The species can undergo such a large number of modifications in its forms and qualities, that without losing its vital capacity, it may be, by its latest conformation and properties, farther removed from its original state than from a different species: it is in that case metamorphosed into a new species."[6]
Tributes
- Lacepede Bay in South Australia, and the Lacepede Islands off the northern coast of Western Australia,[7] are named after him.
- The street Rue Lacépède near the Jardin des Plantes and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris was named after him.
- A Phelsuma cepediana, commonly known as the blue-tailed day gecko, is named in his honour.[8]
Works
- Les ages de la nature et histoire de l'espèce humaine. Paris 1830 p.m.
- Histoire naturelle de l'homme. Pitois-Le Vrault, Paris 1827 p.m.
- Histoire générale, physique et civile de l'Europe. Cellot, Mame, Delaunay-Vallée & de Mat, Paris, Brüssel 1826 p.m.
- Histoire naturelle des quadrupèdes ovipares, serpents, poissons et cétacées. Eymery, Paris 1825.
- Histoire naturelle des cétacées. Plassan, Paris 1804.
- Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de Dolomieu. Bossange, Paris 1802.
- La menagerie du Museum national d'histoire naturelle. Miger, Paris 1801–04.
- Discours d'ouverture et de clôture du cours de zoologie. Plassan, Paris 1801.
- Discours d'ouverture et de clôture du cours d'histoire naturelle. Plassan, Paris 1799.
- Lacépède, Bernard Germain (1798–1803). Illustrations de Histoire naturelle des poissons. Marie-Anne Rousselet (engraver). Paris, France: Chez Passan.
- Discours d'ouverture et de clôture du cours d'histoire naturelle des animaux vertébrés et a sang rouge. Plassan, Paris 1798.
- Discours d'ouverture du Cours d'histoire naturelle. Paris 1797.
- Histoire naturelle des serpents. Tome second. de Thou, Paris 1789.
- Histoire naturelle des quadrupèdes ovipares et des serpens. Tome premier.. de Thou, Paris 1788.
- Vie de Buffon. Maradan, Amsterdam 1788.
- La poétique de la musique. Paris 1785.
- Physique générale et particulière. Paris 1782–84.
- Essai sur l'électricité naturelle et artificielle. Paris 1781.
References
- ^ a b public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lacépède, Bernard Germain Étienne de la Ville, Compte de". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 48. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Dictionnaire universelle de la Franc-Maçonnerie (Marc de Jode, Monique Cara and Jean-Marc Cara, ed. Larousse , 2011)
- ^ Dictionnaire de la Franc-Maçonnerie (Daniel Ligou, Presses Universitaires de France, 2006)
- ^ Lacépède: Savant, musicien, philanthrope et musicien (Bernard Quilliet, ed. Tallandier, 2013)
- ISBN 0-226-71200-1
- ^ "Bernard-Germain-Etienne Lacépède (1756-1825)" Archived 7 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine. National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.
- ^ "The Lacepede Islands". Archived from the original on 1 March 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Lacépède", p. 149).
Further reading
- Schmitt, Stéphane (2010). "Lacepède’s syncretic contribution to the debates on natural history in France around 1800". Journal of the History of Biology 43: 429-457.
- Cuvier, Georges (1876). Éloges historiques de MM. de Saussure, Pallas, Hauy, de Lacépède et Cavendish. Münster: Theissing. (in French).
- Saloman, Ora Frishberg (1984). Aspects of "Gluckian" operatic thought and practice in France. Ann Arbor.
- Roule, Louis (1932). Lacépède, professeur au Muséum, premier grand chancellier de la Légion d'honneur, et la sociologie humanitaire selon la nature. Paris: Flammarion. (in French).
External links
- Internet Archive Works by Lacepede
- Lacépède (1856) Histoire naturelle de Lacépède, 2 vol. – Linda Hall Library