ABSTRACT
When we reconstruct the conceptual horizons of the emergent earth and life sciences over the eighteenth century, as these sciences worked through new discoveries and longer-term debates, we can trace a “historicization of nature” across the whole epoch, gaining impetus from mid-century onward to culminate in the outright affirmations of “transformism” of life forms by figures like Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck around 1800. 1 In shifting from traditional natural history (German: Naturbeschreibung) to a new and provocatively literal history of nature (German: Naturgeschichte), Georges Leclerc de Buffon proved of pivotal importance (Lyon and Sloan 1981; Schneider 2001; Lepenies 1976; 1978). In a paper, I have demonstrated the extraordinary attentiveness to this whole matter in the work of Immanuel Kant (Zammito, forthcoming a; see also Fritscher 1992). Here, I want to explore the place of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in this historical development.
