Biology as a newtonian science. First English language edition of Cuvier's important essay establishing the role of cyclical geological catastrophes in palaeontology.

Naturalist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) is considered the founding father of both vertebrate zoology and palaeontology. He established the concept of biological extinction on a factual basis, was one of the developers of biostraigraphy, and was among the first to suggest that reptiles had previously dominated the earth. Cuvier opposed the evolutionary theories of Lamarck and Saint-Hilaire, and posited instead that cyclical geological catastrophes caused the creation and destruction of life, basing this on evidence of alternating marine and freshwater fossils in the rocks of the Paris basin. But unlike Biblical catastrophism, Cuvier's scientifically-based theory incorporated realistic geological timeframes, accepted that the events were localised instead of worldwide, and brought catastrophes 'within the "Newtonian" system of unchanging natural laws. However obscure the cause of revolutions might be, their repetition implied that they formed part of the ordinary course of nature' (Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils, p131).

'All these ideas were integrated and further developed in the Preliminary Discourse that Cuvier prefixed to his great Researches on the Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds (1812)... The attractively written geological essay with which the work began was recognised at once as a work of the highest importance. It was later issued separately as A Discourse on the Revolutions of the Surface of the Globe, which went through several editions and was translated into the other main European languages. In this way Cuvier's theory, which many years later was give the misleading name of "catastrophism", became widely known and influential among the general reading public as well as among men of science. Cuvier himself rarely used the word "catastrophes", for its overtones of disaster were largely extraneous to his conception of these regular and natural events; he preferred the term "revolutions" for its more Newtonian flavor. Likewise, though the editor of the English editions, Scottish geologist Robert Jameson (1774-1854), entitled the work Theory of the Earth, Cuvier himself always avoided this phrase on account of its associations with the earlier speculative systems he so much deplored' (Rudwick, p132).

This edition is particularly interesting because Jameson added 'lengthy editorial notes' to the text in an attempt to connect Cuvier's catastrophes with the Biblical flood. Using geology to prove the literal truth of the Bible was of much greater concern among British intellectuals than those on the Continent, and James's edits led British readers to believe that Cuvier had more interest in this than he did in reality (Rudwick, pp133-134).

First English language edition; 8vo (21 x 12.5 cm); engraved frontispiece and 1 plate, some toning, light spotting, and offsetting, primarily to the frontispiece, titles, and plate; recently rebound to style in quarter brown calf, black morocco label, marbled boards, red speckled edges, just a little rubbed at the extremities, very good condition; 265pp.