Diderot and the Metamorphosis of Species [Paperback]

In this study Dr. Gregory examines how Diderot borrowed from Lucretius, Buffon, Maupertuis, and probability theory, and combined ideas from these sources in an innovative fashion to hypothesize that species are mutable and that all life arose randomly from a single prototype.

Introduction

1. Chaos, Flux, Time, and Probability
2. Embryology, Epigenesis, and the Metamorphosis of Species
3. Spontaneous Generation
4. The Chain of Beings
5. The Mutability of Species
6. The Ascent of Consciousness

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Mary Gregory is a scholar of the French Enlightenment. For the past ten years she has been researching Diderots views regarding the metamorphosis of species in four of his texts, namely, the Pens?es philosophiques(1746), the Lettre sur les aveugles ? lusage de ceux qui voient(1749), the Pens?es sur linterpr?tation de la nature(1753), and the trilogy, theEntretien entre dAlembert et Diderot(1769), the R?ve de dAlembert(1769), and the Suite de lEntretien(1769).