Charles Bonnet
Charles Bonnet | |
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Republic of Geneva | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Naturalist |
Charles Bonnet (French:
Life and work
Bonnet was born in Geneva, the son of Pierre Bonnet and Anne-Marie Lullin de Châteauvieux. Although originally from France, the family had been driven into Geneva by
Bonnet made
His first published work appeared in 1745, entitled Traité d'insectologie, in which were collected his various discoveries regarding insects, along with a preface on the development of germs and the scale of organized beings. Botany, particularly the leaves of plants, next attracted his attention; and after several years of diligent study, rendered irksome by the increasing weakness of his eyesight, he published in 1754 one of the most original and interesting of his works, Recherches sur l'usage des feuilles dans les plantes (Research on the use of leaves in plants). In this book, he observes that gas bubbles form on plant leaves that have been submerged in water, indicating gas exchange; and among other things he advances many considerations tending to show (as was later done by Francis Darwin) that plants are endowed with powers of sensation and discernment. But Bonnet's eyesight, which threatened to fail altogether, caused him to turn to philosophy. In 1754 his Essai de psychologie was published anonymously in London. This was followed by the Essai analytique sur les facultés de l'âme (Analytical essay on the faculties of the soul) (Copenhagen, 1760), in which he develops his views regarding the physiological conditions of mental activity. He returned to physical science, but to the speculative side of it, in his Considerations sur les corps organisées (Amsterdam, 1762), designed to refute the theory of epigenesis, and to explain and defend the doctrine of pre-existent germs. In his Contemplation de la nature (Amsterdam, 1764–1765; translated into Italian, German, English and Dutch), one of his most popular and delightful works, he sets forth, in eloquent language, the theory that all the beings in nature form a gradual scale rising from lowest to highest, without any break in its continuity. His last important work was the Palingénésie philosophique (Geneva, 1769–1770); in it he treats of the past and future of living beings, and supports the idea of the survival of all animals, and the perfecting of their faculties in a future state. Bonnet's complete works appeared at Neuchâtel in 1779–1783, partly revised by himself.[4]
In 1760 he described a condition now called
Bonnet's philosophical system may be outlined as follows. Man is a compound of two distinct substances, mind and body, the one immaterial and the other material. All knowledge originates in sensations; sensations follow (whether as physical effects or merely as sequents Bonnet will not say) vibrations in the nerves appropriate to each; and lastly, the nerves are made to vibrate by external physical stimulus. A nerve once set in motion by a particular object tends to reproduce that motion; so that when it a second time receives an impression from the same object it vibrates with less resistance. The sensation accompanying this increased flexibility in the nerve is, according to Bonnet, the condition of memory. When reflection—that is, the active element in mind—is applied to the acquisition and combination of sensations, those abstract ideas are formed which, though generally distinguished from, are thus merely sensations in combination only. That which puts the mind into activity is pleasure or pain; happiness is the end of human existence.[4]
Bonnet's
In this final proposition, Bonnet violates his own principle of continuity, by postulating an interval between the highest created being and the Divine[citation needed]. It is also difficult to understand whether the constant advance to perfection is performed by each individual, or only by each race of beings as a whole. There seems, in fact, to be an oscillation between two distinct but analogous doctrines—that of the constantly increasing advancement of the individual in future stages of existence, and that of the constantly increasing advancement of the race as a whole according to the successive evolutions of the globe.[4] In Philosophical Palingesis, or Ideas on the Past and Future States of Living Beings (1770), Bonnet argued that females carry within them all future generations in a miniature form. He believed these miniature beings, sometimes called homonculi, would be able to survive even great cataclysms such as the biblical Flood; he predicted, moreover, that these catastrophes brought about evolutionary change, and that after the next disaster, men would become angels, mammals would gain intelligence, and so on.[citation needed]
Bonnet had an influence on other philosophers and pre-evolutionary thinkers; James Burnett, Lord Monboddo is known to have studied his publications on insects and to have been influenced as he developed concepts on progression of species (evolution).[9][10]
Works
Books
- Traité d'insectologie ou Observations sur quelques espèces de vers d'eau douce, qui coupés par morceaux, deviennent autant d'animaux complets, 1745.[11]
- Recherches sur l'usage des feuilles dans les plantes, 1754.[12]
- Essai de psychologie, 1754.[13]
- Essai analytique sur les facultés de l'âme, 1760.[14]
- Considérations sur les corps organisés, two volumes, 1762[15][16]
- Considerations sur les corps organisés (in French). Vol. 3. Neuchâtel: Samuel Fauche. 1779.
- Contemplation de la nature, two volumes, 1764.[17][18] A German translation was made by Jakob Friedrich Klemm.
- Contemplation de la nature (in French). Vol. 1. Amsterdam: Marc Michel Rey. 1764.
- Contemplation de la nature (in French). Vol. 2. Amsterdam: Marc Michel Rey. 1764.
- Contemplation de la nature (in French). Vol. 4. Neuchâtel: Samuel Fauche. 1781.
- Contemplation de la nature (in French). Vol. 4. Neuchâtel: Samuel Fauche. 1781.
- Contemplation de la nature (in German). Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Junius. 1772.
- La palingénésie philosophique [archive], 1769.[19] An English translation of certain portions of the Palingénésie philosophique was published in 1787, under the title Philosophical and Critical Inquiries concerning Christianity.[20]
- Œuvres d'histoire naturelle et de philosophie, 8 volumes 1779–1783.[21]
- Mémoires autobiographiques, Paris, Vrin, 1948.[22]
- Mémoires d'histoire naturelle (in French). Vol. 2. Neuchâtel: Samuel Fauche. 1779.
- Ecrits d'histoire naturelle (in French). Vol. 5. Neuchâtel: Samuel Fauche. 1781.
- Lettres sur divers sujets d'histoire naturelle (in French). Vol. 5. Neuchâtel: Samuel Fauche. 1781.
-
1766 German edition of Contemplation de la Nature, or, Betrachtung über die Natur, translated by Johann Daniel Titius
-
First page of the 1766 German edition of Contemplation de la Nature, or, Betrachtung über die Natur, translated by Johann Daniel Titius
Correspondence
- Lettre de M. Charles Bonnet. Au sujet du discours de M. J. J. Rousseau de Genève, sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes.[23] Reproduction, in Rousseau's Works, of Bonnet's letter published in the Mercure de France.
- Two letters in French from Bonnet to Lazzaro Spallanzani.[24]
- Jean-Paul Nicolas, La correspondance Charles Bonnet—Michel Adanson, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, 1969
- Letters published by the Duke of Caraman, including an exchange with Gabriel Cramer on human freedom.[25]
Bibliography
Biography
- A Lemoine, Charles Bonnet (Paris, 1850)
- Victor Antoine Charles de Riquet de Caraman, Charles Bonnet, philosophe et naturaliste (Paris, 1859)[25]
- Max Offner, Die Psychologie Charles Bonnet (Leipzig, 1893);
- Joh. Speck, in Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos x. (1897), xi. (1897), pp. 58 foIl., Xi. (1898) pp. 1–211
- Jean Trembley, Vie privée et littéraire de Charles Bonnet, 1794.
Secondary work
- Isaac Salomon Anspach, Discours du citoyen Isaac Salomon Anspach, prononcé le jeudi 8 d'août 1793 l'an 2 de l'Égalité, après le placement de l'inscription en l'honneur de Charles Bonnet.[26]
- Peter J. Bowler, " Bonnet and Buffon : theories of generation and the problem of species", dans Journal for the history of biology, 6, 1973, p. 259-281.
- Marino Buscaglia and René Sigrist (ed), " Charles Bonnet, savant et philosophe (1720-1793)". Actes du Colloque international de Genève (25-27 novembre 1993) , Genève, 1994 (Mémoires de la Société de physique et d'histoire naturelle de Genève, vol. 47).
- Jacques Marx, Charles Bonnet contre les Lumières (1738-1850), Oxford, The Voltaire Foundation, 1976 (2 vol.)
- Georges Cuvier and Madeleine de Saint-Agy, "De Bonnet et de ses travaux", Histoire des sciences naturelles : depuis leur origine jusqu'à nos jours, Volume 4, 1843, p. 244–263.[27]
- Raymond Savioz, La philosophie de Charles Bonnet de Genève, Paris, Vrin, 1948.[22]
- René Sigrist, " L'expérimentation comme rhétorique de la preuve : l'exemple du Traité d'insectologie de Charles Bonnet", in Revue d'Histoire des Sciences, 54/4, 2001, p. 419–449.[28]
- René Sigrist, La Nature à l'épreuve. Les débuts de l'expérimentation à Genève (1670-1790), Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2011, p. 225-263, 292-309 et 536-576.
References
- Swiss Confederacy on 19 May 1815. In this respect, his citizenship status is the same as that of his close contemporary Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
- ISBN 0-7679-0816-3.
- ISSN 1874-9828.
- ^ a b c d e f g Chisholm 1911.
- ISBN 978-1-4000-6937-8.
- ^ Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab 1742–1942 – Samlinger til Selskabets Historie, vol. 1, Copenhagen, 1942, p. 386.
- ^ Berrios G E & Brook P (1982) The Charles Bonnet Syndrome and the problem of visual perceptual disorders in the elderly. Age and Ageing 11: 17–23
- ^ Bonnet Charles (1760) Essai Analytique sur les facultés de l’âme. Copenhagen: Philibert, pp 426–428
- ISBN 1-85506-207-0
- PMID 11615700.
- .
- ^ Bonnet, Charles (1754). Recherches sur l'usage des feuilles dans les plantes, et sur quelques autres sujets relatifs à l'histoire de la végetation (in French). chez Elie Luzac, Fils.
- ^ Bonnet, Charles (1755), Essai de psychologie, pp. TdM, retrieved 1 March 2020
- .
- ^ Bonnet, Charles (1762). Considerations sur les corps organisâes: oáu l'on traite de leur origine, de leur dâeveloppement, de leur râeproduction, &c., & áou l'on a rassemblâe en abrâegâe tout ce que l'histoire naturelle offre de plus certain & de plus intâeressant sur ce sujet (in French). Chez Marc-Michel Rey.
- ^ Bonnet, Charles (1762). Considerations sur les corps organisés: où l'on traite de leur origine, de leur développement, de leur réproduction, &c. & ... tout ce que l'histoire naturelle offre ... sur ce sujet . (in French). Marc-Michel Rey.
- ^ Bonnet, Charles (1769). Contemplation de la nature (in French). Chez M.-M. Rey.
- ^ Bonnet, Charles (1769). Contemplation de la nature (in French). Chez Marc-Michel Rey.
- ^ Bonnet, Charles (1769). La palingénésie philosophique : ou Idées sur l'état passé et sur l'état futur des êtres vivans : ouvrage destiné á servir de supplément aux derniers écrits de l'auteur et qui contient principalement le précis de ses recherches sur le christianisme. Duke University Libraries. Geneve : C. Philibert.
- ^ Charles Bonnet (1803). Philosophical and critical inquiries concerning Christianity, tr. by J.L. Boissier. Oxford University.
- .
- ^ JSTOR 227482.
- ^ Bibliothèque de Genève / Collection complète... [469]. 1780. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
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ignored (help) - ^ "ETH-Bibliothek / Fisica animale e vegetabile... [170]". www.e-rara.ch. 1782. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
- ^ a b Caraman.), Victor Antoine Charles RIQUET (Duke de; Bonnet, Charles (1859). Charles Bonnet, philosophe et naturaliste, sa vie et ses œuvres (in French).
- ^ Anspach, Isaak Salomon (1793). Discours Du Citoyen Isaac Salomon Anspach, Prononcé le Jeudi 8 d'Août 1793, l'an 2e. de l'Egalité: Après Le Placement De L'Inscription En L'Honneur De Charles Bonnet (in French).
- ^ Cuvier, Georges (1843). Histoire des sciences naturelles: depuis leur origine jusqu'à nos jours, chez tous les peuples connus (in French). Fortin, Masson.
- .
Sources
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bonnet, Charles". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 211. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
External links
- Works by Charles Bonnet at the Biodiversity Heritage Library
- A Compendium of Natural Philosophy 1836 English translation
- Charles Bonnet Syndrome Informational Pamphlet