Abstract
In the space of four years, from 1826 to 1829, the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal published three anonymous articles seemingly advocating doctrines inspired by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Decades of scholarship have initially attributed the most outspoken of the three articles, the 1826 “Observations on the Nature and Importance of Geology,” to Robert Grant, and subsequently to Robert Jameson, thanks to a critical reassessment by James Secord (1991). More recently, scholars have also ascribed to Jameson an article published in 1829, “Of the Continuity of the Animal Kingdom by Means of Generation from the First Ages of the World to the Present Times.” A third short contribution, the 1827 “Of the Changes which Life has Experienced on the Globe” has been credited to the Franco-German Ami Boué. Research undertaken over several years has led to the identification of the three authors hiding behind the veil of anonymity. They were not the ones scholars have agreed upon, nor were they really “Lamarckians.” The discussion of the ways in which the three texts reached Edinburgh broadens our understanding of the daily working practices of contemporary periodicals and of the networks of circulation of texts at the Continental level. Finally, when considered within their proper conceptual and social context, the three articles throw light on the many ways in which, during the 1820s, European amateurs, naturalists, and journalists debated the succession of life forms throughout the history of the Earth.
Highlights
Over the last few years, students of early nineteenth century British evolutionism have repeatedly brought to the forefront the question of the authorship of three articles published in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal in the space of four years, 1826 to 1829
Discussion of the authorship of this contribution has more recently been paired with hypotheses concerning the authorship of two further anonymous articles, “Of the Changes which Life has Experienced on the Globe,” a short text published in 1827 (Anon. 1827a), and “Of the Continuity of the Animal Kingdom by Means of Generation from the First Ages of the World to the Present Times,” which appeared in the April 1829 instalment of the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (Anon. 1829b)
At the end of the article, he mentioned colleagues who agreed with him: Férussac, Alexander von Humboldt, Leopold von Buch, Joseph Fourier, Alexander Crichton, and Charles Daubeny (Boué 1825, pp. 103–104).15. Why did he omit Rengger? Even more perplexing is a short paragraph printed in the last instalment of volume 10, 1827, of the Bulletin, announcing that on page 293 of the New Edinburgh Philosophical Journal 1826, an article had been published on the importance of geology (Anon. 1827b)
Summary
Over the last few years, students of early nineteenth century British evolutionism have repeatedly brought to the forefront the question of the authorship of three articles published in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal in the space of four years, 1826 to 1829. Concerning the case at hand, if there is no doubt that the article published in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal was a translation of Bertrand’s contribution to Le Globe, several baffling matters remained to be accounted for.
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