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Jean Lamarck
[N]ature has in favorable times, places, and climates multiplied her first germs of animality, given place to developments of their organizations, [. . .] and increased and diversified their organs....
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William Paley (1743-1805)
William Paley was the originator of the theory now known as “creationism,” the idea that the world as we experience it was created by the Judeo-Christian God in an act of divine fiat, and act which is...
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Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
[Left: Rembrandt Peale's 1805 portrait (copy by Joanna Neroda)] Thomas Jefferson is not thought of first and foremost as a natural historian, but his Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) proved to...
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William Bartram
Snails, dragonfly, crab and snake: a veritable peaceable kingdom, except perhaps for the hapless frog? William Bartram had perhaps as much direct impact on the Romantic poets as any other...
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Joseph Priestley
Jennifer Lindbeck, Class of ’98, Dickinson College Joseph Priestley, best known for his work as a chemist and for his discovery of oxygen, was born on March 13, 1733. He received his early education...
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Erasmus Darwin
Dionea muscipula, Venus fly-trap, The Botanic Garden (1789-91) Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, was born near Nottingham on December 12, 1731. He was educated at Cambridge and Edinburgh...
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Oliver Goldsmith
Monument for Oliver Goldsmith in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey Oliver Goldsmith’s An History of the Earth and Animated Nature has been described as everything from “hackwork” to his “most...
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Gilbert White
Without Gilbert White, natural history would not have developed as it has over the past two centuries. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne became the first widely distributed, and most...
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George-Louis Buffon (1707-88)
Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was the French naturalist perhaps most responsuble for the rise of European interest in natural history during the eighteenth century. His massive Histoire...
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Carolus Linnaeus
Carolus Linnaeus is the Latinized form of Carl von Linne, the Swedish botanist whose systems of classification and nomenclature had a revolutionary effect on the study of all living things. He...
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