[DARWIN]. QUATREFAGES DE BREAU, JEAN LOUIS ARMAND DE.

HISTOIRE NATURELLE GéNéRALE

Paris, Bureau de la revue des deux mondes. 1869. Large 8vo, pp. 208-240; complete volume pp. 1056; some occasional light foxing, otherwise clean and crisp; in contemporary brown morocco backed marbled boards, spine in compartments with raised bands, decorated and lettered in gilt, head and tail of spine and joints rubbed and lightly worn, covers a little scuffed; a good copy.
¶ First edition of this critical discussion by the French anthropologist, naturalist and opponent of Darwin, August Quatrefages de Breau (1810–1892), one of several essays published by Quatrefages on the subject in the Revue des Deux Mondes. The present essay is the second in a series of five articles published between 1868-1869 under the ‘Histoire Naturelle Générale’. The first appeared with the sub-title ‘Les précursors français de Darwin’ (78, pp. 832-860), with ‘Discussion des théories transformistes’ (80, 64-95); ‘Discussion des théoristes transformiste l’espèce et la race’ (80, 397-432); and ‘Théories de la transformation progressive et de la transformation brusque-Origine Simienne de l’homme’ (80, 638-672) following.‘In many ways Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Breau stands out from the other critics of Darwin in having a much more sophisticated understanding of what Darwin had said ... Quatrefages, like many of the other biologists, recognised that there was much variation in nature and that natural selection could well account for this variation; but he maintained that it could not account for any transformation of species. Variation within species was perfectly acceptable, but transformism was not; (Farley, p. 295). ‘A sensitive critic of the ‘Origin’, he respected Darwin and even nominated him, unsuccessfully, for the Académie Français in 1870. Darwin used his ‘Unité de l’Espèce Humaine (1861) and anthropological papers to support his own views on racial crossing and on climate not causing human variation’ (Moore and Desmond Penquin edition of the Descent of Man, p. 709). Quatrefages is best remembered for his study on human craniums and in 1886-1889 published his ‘Histoire générale des races humaines’. In 1855, after lecturing for five years at the Lycée Napoléon, he was appointed professor of anatomy and ethnology at the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle. He also published in 1870 ‘Charles Darwin et ses precurseurs français’, and maintained that Naudin had stated the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1852.  See John Farley, The Initial Reactions of French Biologists to Darwin’s Origin of Species’ in the Journal of History of Biology, vol 7, no 2, 1974 for a detailed discussion.

-- Deborah Coltham Rare Books

Book number: 1035