Click Here to Download: https://ouo.io/Beh38K Evolutionism in Eighteenth-Century French Thought By: Mary Efrosini Gregory Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers Print ISBN: 9781433103735, 1433103737 eText ISBN: 9781453903834, 1453903836 Edition: 1st Format: PDF Available from $ 101.95 USD SKU 9781453903834 This book examines how eight eighteenth-century French theorists – Maillet, Montesquieu, La Mettrie, Buffon, Maupertuis, Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire – addressed evolutionism. Each thinker laid down a building block that would eventually open the door to the mutability of species and a departure from the long-held belief that the chain of beings is fixed. This book describes how the philosophes established a triune relationship among contemporary scientific discoveries, random creationism propelled by the motive and conscious properties of matter, and the notion of the chain of being, along with its corollaries, plenitude and continuity. Also addressed is the contemporary debate over whether apes could ever be taught to speak as well as the issue of race and the family of man.
