Different sections of this article were presented at meetings of the Northeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Amherst, Mass., 5 October 1978, and the 26th International Geological Congress, Paris, 9 July 1980.

¹ Schneer, Cecil J., ‘The rise of historical geology in the seventeenth century,’ Isis, 1954, 45, 256–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarLevine, Joseph M., Dr. Woodward's shield: history, science and satire in Augustan England, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1977.Google Scholar

² Patin, Charles, Histoire des médailles ou introduction à la connaissance de cette science, Paris, 1695, p. 8.Google Scholar Italics added. The same sentence in the 1691 edition is quoted by Momigliano, Arnaldo, ‘Ancient history and the antiquarian,’ in Momigliano, , Contributo alla storia degli studi classici, Rome, 1955, p. 86, n. 31.Google Scholar Momigliano discusses at length the confidence of antiquarians in monuments, as well as the distinctions one may draw between ‘antiquarians’ and ‘historians.’

³ Lévy-Bruhl, L., ‘The Cartesian spirit and history,’ in Klibansky, R. and Paton, H. J., eds., Philosophy and history: essays presented to Ernst Cassirer, Oxford, 1936, pp. 191–6.Google ScholarDavillé, L., Leibniz historien, Paris, 1909, pp. 337–40.Google Scholar

⁴ Muratori, L. A., Delle riflessioni sopra il buon gusto, 2 vols., Venice, 1766, i, 184–6, and ii, 56–61.Google Scholar Works in these volumes were originally published in the first decade of the century. Cf. Mabillon, Jean, Traité des études monastiques, Paris, 1691, especially p. 236Google Scholar, but also pp. 233–42. Leibniz, to Burnett, Thomas, 1/11 02 1697Google Scholar, in Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Withelm Leibniz, ed. Gerhardt, C. J., 7 vols., Berlin, 1875–1899, iii, 193–4.Google Scholar This Burnett (sic) was a distant relative of the author of The sacred theory of the earth.

⁵ Leibniz, to Burnett, , 29 12 1707Google Scholar, in Schriften (4), iii, 315Google Scholar; also, iii, 182, and Davillé, , op. cit. (3), pp. 131, 465–9.Google ScholarStark, C. B., Systematik und geschichte des archäologie der kunst, Leipzig, 1880, pp. 155–7.Google Scholar There is no study of the antiquarians, but Momigliano, , op. cit. (2)Google Scholar, has a useful bibliography. For a more sophisticated view of degrees of certainty in history, see the discussion of Fréret by Mercier, Roger, ‘Une controverse sur la vérité historique,’ in La Régence, proceedings of a colloquium held at Aix-en-Provence, Paris, 1970, pp. 294–306.Google Scholar

⁶ The quotation is from Newton's Principia, rule 3 of the Rules of Reasoning. See Hooke, Robert, Micrographia, 1665, repr. New York, 1961, p. 112Google Scholar; Leibniz, G. W., Protogée ou de la formation et des révolutions du globe, originally published in Latin in 1749, tr. Germain, B. de St., Paris, 1859, pp. 47–9Google Scholar; Hooke, , Posthumous works, 1705 repr.Google Scholar with intro. by Brown, T. M., London, 1971, p. 321Google Scholar; and Woodward, J., The natural history of the earth, ed. and tr. Holloway, B., 2 vols., London, 1726, ii, 155.Google Scholar Also: Astruc, Jean, in Mémoires de Trévoux, 03 1708, pp. 515–16Google Scholar; Beringer, J. B. A., The lying stones of Dr. Johann Bartholomew Adam Beringer, originally published in Latin in 1726, tr. and ed. Jahn, M. E. and Woolf, D. J., Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1963, pp. 59–60, 72–3, 183–4, 186–7Google Scholar; Boccone, Paolo, Recherches et observations naturelles, Paris, 1671, p. 18Google Scholar; and de Fontenelle, B., in Histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences, 1706 (1731), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar For the problems posed by fossils, see Rudwick, M. J. S., The meaning of fossils, London, New York, 1972, chapters 1–2.Google Scholar

⁷ Review of a French translation of Woodward, , in Mémoires de Trévoux, 02 1736, especially pp. 245, 247, 252.Google ScholarJahn, M. E., ‘Some notes on Dr. Scheuchzer and on Homo diluvii testisi’ in Schneer, C. J., ed., Toward a history of geology, Cambridge, Mass., 1969, pp. 192–213.Google Scholar Also, Rappaport, R., ‘Geology and orthodoxy: the case of Noah's flood in eighteenth-century thought,’ The British journal for the history of science, 1978, 11, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ For Steno and Leibniz, see Leibniz, , Protogée (6), p. 18.Google ScholarFontenelle, , in Hist. Acad., 1722 (1724), p. 4.Google ScholarBergman, , Essays physical and chemical, Edinburgh, 1791, pp. 236–7.Google ScholarPallas, , Observations sur la formation des montagnes et les changemens arrivés au globe, St. Petersburg, 1777, p. 29.Google ScholarBlumenbach, , Beyträge zur naturgeschichte, 2 vols., Göttingen, 1806–1811, i, 113Google Scholar; translated in The anthropological treatises of Blumenbach, tr. Bendyshe, T., London, 1865, pp. 317–18.Google ScholarCuvier, , ‘Discours préliminaire,’ Recherches sur les ossemene fossiles de quadrupèdes, 4 vols., Paris, 1812, i, 1.Google Scholar

⁹ Carozzi, , ‘Une nouvelle interprétation du soi-disant catastrophisme de Cuvier,’ Archives des sciences, Geneva, 1971, 24, 367–77.Google Scholar Carozzi concludes, p. 374, that ‘l'usage du mot ‘révolution’ par Cuvier ne peut pas être pris dans un sens général et à la lettre.’

¹⁰ Especially valuable is Gilbert, Felix, ‘Revolution,’ in Dictionary of the history of ideas, ed. Wiener, Philip, 5 vols., New York, 1973, iv, 152–67.Google Scholar Pertinent quotations and extensive bibliography are in Cohen, I. Bernard, ‘The eighteenth-century origins of the concept of scientific revolution,’ Journal of the history of ideas, 1976, 37, 257–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In addition to these and to works cited below, I have consulted the dictionaries of the Académie française (1694 and later editions), Nathan Bailey (1736, 1764), and Samuel Johnson (1755), as well as other pertinent passages in Dr Johnson's works, using as my guide Wimsatt, W. K. jr, Philosophic words, New Haven, 1948.Google Scholar

¹¹ Hume, David, Dialogues concerning natural religion, ed. Aiken, Henry D., New York, 1957, part VI, p. 45.Google Scholar The meanings here are great alterations, cyclical changes, and the passage of time.

¹² Diderot, Denis and d'Alembert, Jean, Encylopédie, 28 vols., Paris, 1751–1772, xiv (1765), 237Google Scholar: article ‘Révolution,’ unsigned.

¹³ Among the many works with ‘revolutions’ in their titles, I have looked at those by Carlo Denina, P.-F. Guyot Desfontaines, Laurence Echard (or Eachard), and Benedetto Varchi. Standard catalogues (Bibliothèque nationale, British library, Heinsius) list not only many French editions of Vertot's works, but also translations ranging from the German to the Catalan; after 1800, certain of his works also appeared in Spanish and Russian.

¹⁴ Vertot, René-Aubert, Histoire des révolutions de Suéde, 2 vols., Paris, 1695, iGoogle Scholar, Avertissement. Henry Guerlac has called to my attention the fact that Vertot's work on Portugal ends with the restoration of the Braganzas. When first published in 1689, however, this work was entitled, Histoire de la conjuration du Portugal; revised and reissued in 1711, it was given a title of proven success, with ‘révolutions’ replacing ‘conjuration.’

¹⁵ Gibbon, Edward, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, 3rd ed., 6 vols., London, 1777–1788, vol. i, pp. iii, 1–2.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Encyclopédie (12), xiv, 237–8Google Scholar, article unsigned.

¹⁷ Burnet, Thomas, The theory of the earth, London, 1684, p. 326.Google ScholarFontanelle, , in Hist. Acad., 1718 (1719), p. 5Google Scholar; 1720 (1722), p. 8; 1721 (1723), pp. 1–4; 1722 (1724), p. 4. Jussieu, , ‘De l'origine des pierres appellées yeux de serpents et crapaudines,’ Mém. Acad., 1723 (1725), p. 205.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Oeuvres philosophiques de Buffon, ed. Piveteau, Jean, Paris, 1954, p. 104B.Google Scholar This passage cornes from the ‘Conclusion’ following the ‘Preuves de la théorie de la terre.’

¹⁹ Lehmann, J. G., Versuch einer geschichte von flötz-gebürgen, Berlin, 1756, pp. 18, 20, 81Google Scholar, compared with Lehmann, , Traités de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de minéralogie et de métallurgie, tr. d'Holbach, , 3 vols., Paris, 1759, iii, 102, 104–5, 192.Google ScholarD'Holbach, , ‘Montagnes,’ in Encyclopédie (12), x (1765), 672.Google Scholar

²⁰ Arduino, Giovanni, ‘Saggio fisico-mineralogico di lythogonia, e orognosia,’ Atti dell' Accademia delle scienze di Siena, 1774, 5, 230.Google Scholar An earlier statement of Arduino's ideas, but without the vocabulary of ‘revolutions,’ is in ‘Due lettere del Sig. Giovanni Arduino sopra varie sue osservazioni naturali,’ Nuova raccolta d'opuscoli scientifici e filologici, Venice, 1760, 6, xcvii–clxxx.Google Scholar

²¹ Ferber, J. J., ‘Réflexions sur l'ancienneté relative des roches et des couches terreuses qui composent la croute du globe terrestre,’ Acta academiae scientiarum imperialispetropolitanae, 1782 (1786), 6, ii, 193–4, 198.Google Scholar

²² Quoted from Playfair's life of Hutton (1805), in Craig, Gordon Y., ed., James Mutton's theory of the earth: the lost drawings, Edinburgh, 1978, p. 23.Google Scholar

²³ Pallas, , op cit. (8), pp. 35–6.Google Scholar Elsewhere, he refers to the greater intensity of revolutions during the early history of the earth: Voyages de M. P. S. Pallas, en différentes provinces de l'empire de Russie, et dans l'Asie septentrionale, tr. de la Peyronie, Gauthier, 6 vols., Paris, 1788–1793, i, 697.Google ScholarSaussure, , Voyages dans les Alpes, 8 vols., Geneva, Neuchâtel, 1787–1796, viii, 253, 271, 274–5.Google Scholar The ‘agenda,’ reprinted more than once, can also be found in the Journal des mines, floréal an IV [1796], 4, no. 20, 1–70.Google Scholar

²⁴ Soldani, Ambrogio, Saggio orittografico, Siena, 1780, p. 89.Google Scholarde Lamarck, J. B., Hydrogéologie, Paris, 1802, pp. 64–5Google Scholar; translation from Lamarck, , Hydrogeology, tr. Carozzi, Albert V., Urbana, Ill., 1964, p. 58.Google Scholar Comparable statements are in Lamarck, 's Système des animaux sans vertèbres, Paris, 1801, p. 406Google Scholar, and in his ‘Mémoires sur les fossiles des environs de Paris,’ Annales du Muséum national d'historie naturelle, 1802, 1, 299.Google Scholar

²⁵ Leopold von Buck's gesammelte Schriften, ed. Ewald, J., Roth, J., Eck, H., and Dames, W., 4 vols, in 5, Berlin, 1867–1885, i, 129.Google Scholar The quoted text, first published in 1800, occurs in a letter to Pictet on the controversy between Kirwan and Hall. Darcet, , Discours en forme de dissertation sur l'état actuel des montagnes des Pyrénées, et sur les causes de leur dégradation, Paris, 1776, p. 21.Google ScholarDesmarest, , Encyclopédie méthodique: géographie physique, 5 vols., Paris, 1794–1828, especially i (1794), 341Google Scholar; iii (1809), 197–8; iv (1811), 39–40. Fortis, A., Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire naturelle et principalement à l'oryctographie de l'Italie, et des pays adjacens, 2 vols., Paris, 1802, i, 194–5.Google Scholar

²⁶ Rappaport, , op. cit. (7), especially p. 8Google Scholar, and above (19). Similarly qualified use of ‘revolution’ can be found in a historian aware of the content of geological literature: von Schlözer, A. L., Weltgeschichte nach ihren haupttheilen im auszug und zusammenhange, Göttingen, 1785, pp. 18–19, 36, 40.Google Scholar

²⁷ Hooke had developed his theory shortly before the publication of Steno's Prodromus, and he continued to lecture on ‘earthquakes’ for some years thereafter. For a discussion of this theory, see Carozzi in Raspe, R. E., An introduction to the natural history of the terrestrial sphere, tr. and ed. by Iversen, A. N. and Carozzi, A. V., New York, 1970, pp. xxiv, 155–7.Google Scholar For objections by Hooke's contemporaries, see his own summary in Posthumous works (6), p. 404.Google Scholar

²⁸ I do not know precisely when such words became old-fashioned or obsolete in geology, and, in any event, to seek precision in dating changes of usage is hopeless. One topic which could and should be clarified, however, is the transformation of ‘revolution’ from an ambiguous word into a ‘catastrophic’ one. Comparison of Cuvier's Discours (1812) with Kerr's translation (1813) would be an obvious starting point, but this should be followed by comparisons of British and Continental usage in the twenty years between Cuvier and Charles Lyell. Rudwick, , op. cit. (6), chapter 3Google Scholar, is helpful in this respect.

²⁹ Robertson, William, The history of the reign of the Emperor Charles V, 3 vols., London, 1769, i, 18.Google Scholar

³⁰ Stewart, Dugald, ‘Account of the life and writings of Adam Smith, LL. D.,’ in Smith, Essays on philosophical subjects, ed. Black, Joseph and Hutton, James, London, 1795, p. xlvi.Google Scholar The same passage is cited by Burkhardt, below (32). Stewart also remarked: ‘when we cannot trace the process by which an event has been produced, it is often of importance to be able to show how it may have been produced by natural causes,’ and he praised the ‘theoretical history’ of Montesquieu who avoided ‘bewildering himself among the erudition of scholiasts and of antiquaries.’ Stewart, , pp. xlii–xliii.Google Scholar Italics are in the original.

³¹ Barnes, Douglas M., ‘Edmund Burke and the history of the middle ages in the eighteenth century,’ unpublished senior thesis in history, Vassar College, 1980, p. 56.Google Scholar I am indebted to Mr. Barnes for calling to my attention the passage in Robertson, quoted above (29).

³² Burkhardt, Richard W. jr, The spirit of system: Lamarck and evolutionary biology, Cambridge, Mass., 1977, pp. 87, 142, 145–7.Google Scholar In traditional literature, the races of man all derived from the sons of Noah, but eighteenth-century writers emphasized not origins but rather the effects of climate, food, and way of life in producing racial variations in one or more original types.

³³ Peale is quoted in Hunter, John, Essays and observations on natural history, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and geology, ed. Owen, Richard, 2 vols., London, 1861, i, 251 n. 5Google Scholar; also, Hunter's own views, i, 239, 240, 251, in his essay entitled, ‘On monsters.’ Rappaport, R., ‘Lavoisier's theory of the earth,’ The British journal for the history of science, 1973, 6, 252–3, 254–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁴ Early examples are legion, but Louis de Launay's terminology, in his Mémoire sur l'origine des fossiles accidentels des Provinces Belgiques, Brussels, 1779, seems a bit unusual by that late date. By the time Desmarest objected to such usage, it was no longer common, but he pointed out that fossil shells were so common in the strata that they could hardly be called ‘accidents.’ Desmarest, , op. cit. (25), i, 415.Google Scholar Also, Rudwick, , op. cit. (6), chapters 1–2.Google Scholar

³⁵ Daubenton, , Encyclopédie méthodique: histoire naturelle des animaux, 10 vols., Paris, 1782–1825, I, iii–iv.Google ScholarArduino, , in Atti (20), p. 286Google Scholar; also, pp. 229, 293. A common word then for ‘accidental’ was ‘adventitious,’ which is also used by Arduino.

³⁶ Ferber, , ‘Réflexions’ (continuation of article cited above, n. 21), Nova acta academiae scientiarum imperialis petropolitanae, 1784 (1788), 2, 178.Google Scholar

³⁷ Humboldt, , Essai géognostique sur le gisement des roches dans les deux hémisphères, Paris, 1823, p. 63.Google Scholar

³⁸ Based mainly on Francis Bacon, Novum organum, Book I, aphorism 105, with apologies for the element of parody in my summary. Also, Anderson, F. H., The philosophy of Francis Bacon, Chicago, 1948, chapter 18.Google Scholar

³⁹ References to the Touraine, often without mention of Réaumur's name, are too numerous to list. Some discussion is in Rappaport, (7), p. 9.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ For example, Hamilton, William, Campi Phlegraei, Naples, 1776, p. 6.Google Scholar Apparently more common was the attitude of two vulcanologists, Desmarest and Dolomieu, who continued to think of the history of the earth in essentially neptunist terms; valuable articles on these men, both by Taylor, Kenneth L., are in the Dictionary of scientific biography, ed. Gillispie, C. C., 16 vols., New York, 1970–1980, iv, 70–3, 149–53.Google Scholar

⁴¹ For the great quadrupeds in particular, see Greene, John C., The Death of Adam, Ames, Iowa, 1959Google Scholar, chapter 4, and Rudwick (6), chapter 3.

⁴² Arduino, , in Atti (20), p. 287.Google ScholarLamarck, , ‘Mémoires sur les fossiles des environs de Paris,’ Annales du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, 1804, 4, 113, 298.Google Scholar

⁴³ de Paul de Lamanon, Robert, ‘Description de divers fossiles trouvés dans les carrières de Montmartre près Paris,’ Journal de physique, 03 1782, 19, 193.Google Scholar Also, Lamanon, , ‘Mémoire sur un os d'une grosseur énorme qu'on a trouvé dans une couche de glaise au milieu de Paris,’ Journal de physique, 05 1781, 17, 393–405.Google Scholar Lamanon died a few years later, having gone as naturalist with the famous Lapérouse expedition to circumnavigate the globe.

⁴⁴ Articles by Faujas and Brard, P., in Annales du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, 1809, 14, 324, and 1810, 15, 421.Google Scholar For an excellent discussion of the Cuvier-Brongniart monograph, see Rudwick, , ‘Brongniart,’ in Dictionary (40), ii, 493–7.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Brongniart, , ‘Sur des terrains qui paraissent avoir été formés sous l'eau douce,’ Annales du Muséum, 1810, 15, 357–405Google Scholar (especially 357–9, 403–5). He indicates (p. 361) that the much enlarged, more detailed version of his and Cuvier's monograph was then in press.

⁴⁶ Farey, John, ‘Geological remarks and queries on Messrs. Cuvier and Brogniart's [sic] memoir on the mineral geography of the environs of Paris,’ Philosophical magazine, 1810, 35, 113–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBreislak, Scipione, Introduction à la géologie, tr. Bernard, J. J. B., Paris, 1812, pp. 257–8.Google Scholar (The original Italian edition was published in 1811.) Deshayes, G. P., in Encyclopédie méthodique: histoire naturelle des vers, 3 vols., Paris, 1789–1832, ii (1830), 355–6.Google ScholarHumboldt, , op. cit. (37), pp. 37–8, 48–9.Google ScholarBrongniart, , op. cit. (45), p. 358.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The quotation is based on Hexter, J. H., Reappraisals in history, 2nd edition, Chicago and London, 1979, p. 16.Google Scholar Especially interesting studies of relationships between historians and scientists in this period are: Temkin, Owsei, ‘German concepts of ontogeny and history around 1800,’ Bulletin of the history of medicine, 1950, 24, 227–46Google ScholarPubMed, and Rudwick, M. J. S., ‘Historical analogies in the geological work of Charles Lyell,’ Janus, 1977, 64, 89–107.Google Scholar Also, Oldroyd, D. R., ‘Historicism and the rise of historical geology,’ History of science, 1979, 17, 191–213, 227–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar