Abstract
The comparative method, closely identified with Darwinian evolutionary biology, also has a long pre-Darwinian history. The method derives its scientific power from its ability to interpret comparative observations with reference to a theory of relatedness among the entities being compared (the comparates). Such scientifically powerful strong comparison is distinguished from weak comparison, which lacks such theoretical grounding. This paper examines the history of the strong comparison permitted by the comparative method from the early modern period to the threshold of the Darwinian revolution in the mid nineteenth century. It interprets the work of early pioneers such as Belon, Willis, Perrault, and Tyson from this methodological perspective, rather than focusing on their particular anatomical findings. Although these early writers made formative scientific contributions through their comparative investigations, the more theoretically grounded application of the comparative method by Geoffroy, Cuvier, and Owen was instrumental in laying the foundation for its later incorporation into Darwinian evolutionary theory.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Availability of data and material
Not applicable.
Code availability
Not applicable.
Notes
Unless otherwise indicated, translations from French in this paper are my own.
In his articulation of the importance of comparison in biological inquiry, Auguste Comte noted the potential importance of including pathological variations in a comparative analysis, and offered a caution similar to Tyson’s: “When the laws of [the normal] state are fully established, we may pass on to pathological comparison, which will extend the scope of those laws: but we are not yet advanced enough in our knowledge of normal conditions to undertake anything beyond” (Comte 1855, p. 315).
This metaphor is the same as that used by Tyson in the passage from Phocæna quoted above (Sect. 3.4).
References
Adams, D. C., & Collyer, M. L. (2019). Phylogenetic comparative methods and the evolution of multivariate phenotypes. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 50, 405–525.
Ankeny, R. A., & Leonelli, S. (2011). What’s so special about model organisms? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 42, 313–323.
Appel, T. A. (1987). The Cuvier–Geoffroy debate: French biology in the decades before Darwin. Oxford University Press.
Bacon, F. (1605/1915). The advancement of learning. Edited with an introduction by G. W. Kitchin. J. M. Dent & Sons.
Beach, F. A. (1950). The snark was a boojum. American Psychologist, 5, 115–124.
Belon du Mans, P. (1553). Observations de plusieurs singularitez & choses memorables trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Iudée, Egypte, Arabie et autres pays étranges. Guillaume Cavellat.
Belon du Mans, P. (1555). L’ histoire de la nature des oyseaux: Avec leurs descriptions, & naïfs portraicts retirez du naturel: Escrite en sept livres. Guillaume Cavellat.
Bourdier, F. (1969). Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire versus Cuvier: The campaign for paleontological evolution. In C. J. Schneer (Ed.), Toward a history of geology (pp. 36–61). MIT Press.
Brenowitz, E. A., & Zakon, H. H. (2015). Emerging from the bottleneck: Benefits of the comparative approach to modern neuroscience. Trends in Neuroscience, 38, 273–276.
Buchenau, S., & Lo Presti, R. (Eds.). (2017). Human and animal cognition in early modern philosophy and medicine. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Buckland, W. (1836). Geology and mineralogy considered in relation to natural theology. William Pickering.
Bynum, W. F. (1973). The anatomical method, natural theology, and the functions of the brain. Isis, 64, 444–468.
Céard, J. (1975). Pierre Belon, zoologiste. In J. C. Margolin (Ed.), Actes du Colloque Renaissance-Classicisme du Maine, Le Mans 1971 (pp. 129–140). A.-G. Nizet.
Cole, F. J. (1949). A history of comparative anatomy. From Aristotle to the eighteenth century. Macmillan.
Comte, A. (1855). The positive philosophy of Auguste Comte (Harriet Martineau, Transl.). Calvin Blanchard.
Crié, L. (1882). Pierre Belon du Mans et l’anatomie compareé. Revue Scientifique de la France et de l'Etranger, 3rd Series, 16(14), 481–485.
Cuvier, G. (1802). Letter to Jean Claude Mertrud. In Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, Vol. 1 (W. Ross & J. Macartney Transl.). (pp. i–xl). Wilson & Co.
Cuvier, G. (1804). Mémoire sur le squelette presque entire d’un petit quadrupède du genre de sarigues, trouvé dans le pierre à plâtre des environs de Paris. Annales du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, 5, 277–292.
Cuvier, G. (1812). Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles de quadrupeds (Discours préliminaire). Paris.
Darwin, C. R. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. John Murray.
Darwin, C. R. (1871). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. John Murray.
Dawson, G. (2016). Show me the bone: Reconstructing prehistoric monsters in nineteenth-century Britain and America. University of Chicago Press.
Debus, A. G. (1978). Man and nature in the renaissance. Cambridge University Press.
Des Chene, D. (2005). Mechanisms of life in the seventeenth century: Borelli, Perrault, Régis. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological & Biomedical Sciences, 36, 245–260.
Descartes, R. (1664/1985). Treatise on man. In J. Cottingham, R. Stoothhoff, & D. Murdoch (Eds.), The philosophical writings of Descartes (Vol. I, pp. 99–108). Cambridge University Press.
Feindel, W. (1999). The beginnings of neurology: Thomas Willis and his circle of friends. In F. C. Rose (Ed.), A short history of neurology: The British Contribution 1660–1910 (pp. 1–18). Butterworth-Heinemann.
Felsenstein, J. (1985). Phylogenies and the comparative method. American Naturalist, 125, 1–15.
Findlen, P. (2008). Natural history. Early modern science. In K. Park & L. Daston (Eds.), The Cambridge history of science (Vol. 3, pp. 435–468). Cambridge University Press.
Finger, S. (1994). Origins of neuroscience: A history of explorations into brain function. Oxford University Press.
Fodor, J. (1974). Special sciences (Or: The disunity of science as a working hypothesis). Synthese, 28, 97–115.
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, É. (1818/1822). Philosophie anatomique (Vol. I & II). J.-B. Baillière.
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, É. (1830). Principes de philosophie zoologique. Pichon et Didier.
Gillespie, N. C. (1987). Natural history, natural theology, and social order: John Ray and the "Newtonian ideology”. Journal of the History of Biology, 20, 1–49.
Glardon, P. (1997). Pierre Belon du Mans: L’Histoire de la Nature des Oyseaux. Fac-similé de l’édition de 1555, avec introduction et notes. Librarie Droz, S.A.
Gotthelf, A. (2012). Teleology, first principles, and scientific method in Aristotle’s biology. Oxford University Press.
Gould, S. J. (2002). The structure of evolutionary theory. Harvard University Press.
Grigoropoulou, V. (2018). Steno’s critique of Descartes and Louis de la Forge’s response. In M. Lærke & R. Andrault (Eds.), Steno and the philosophers (pp. 113–137). Brill.
Guerrini, A. (2012). Perrault, Buffon, and the natural history of animals. Notes & Records of the Royal Society of London, 66, 393–409.
Guerrini, A. (2015). The Courtiers’ anatomists: Animals and humans in Louis XIV’s Paris. University of Chicago Press.
Harvey, P. H., & Pagel, M. D. (1991). The comparative method in evolutionary biology. Oxford University Press.
Hodgkin, A. L., & Huxley, A. F. (1952). Currents carried by sodium and potassium ions through the membrane of the giant axon of Loligo. Journal of Physiology, 116, 449–472.
Hoeniger, F. D. (1985). How plants and animals were studied in the mid-sixteenth century. In J. W. Shirley & F. D. Hoeniger (Eds.), Science and the arts in the renaissance (pp. 130–148). Folger Library.
Horan, B. L. (1989). Functional explanations in sociobiology. Biology & Philosophy, 4, 131–158.
Hughes, J. T. (1982). Spinal cord arteries described by Willis. In F. C. Rose & W. F. Bynum (Eds.), Historical aspects of the neurosciences: A festschrift for Macdonald Critchley (pp. 195–203). Raven Press.
Huppert, G. (1999). The style of Paris: Renaissance origins of the French enlightenment. Indiana Univeristy Press.
Huxley, T. H. (1856). On the method of paleontology. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 18, 43–54.
Kitchell, K. F., & Resnick, I. M. (1999). Albertus Magnus on animals: A medieval summa zoologica. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Le Guyader, H. (2004). Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 1772–1844: A visionary naturalist. University of Chicago Press. (Translation by Marjorie Grene of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire: Un naturaliste visionnaire. Éditions Belin 1998).
Lennox, J. G. (1980). Aristotle on genera, species, and “the more and the less.” Journal of the History of Biology, 13, 321–346.
Lennox, J. G. (2001). Aristotle’s philosophy of biology. Studies in the origins of life science. Cambridge University Press.
Levy, A., & Curie, A. (2015). Model organisms are not (theoretical) models. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 66, 327–348.
Logan, C. A. (1999). The altered rationale for the choice of a standard animal in experimental psychology: Henry H. Donaldson, Adolf Meyer, and “the” albino rat. History of Psychology, 2, 3–24.
Lokhorst, G.-J.C., & Kaitaro, T. T. (2001). The originality of Descartes’ theory about the pineal gland. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 10, 6–18.
Lorenz, K. Z. (1950). The comparative method in studying innate behaviour patterns. Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology, 4, 221–268.
Lovejoy, A. O. (1936). The great chain of being. A study of the history of an idea. Harvard University Press.
Lowood, H. (1995). The new world and the European catalog of nature. In K. O. Kupperman (Ed.), America in European consciousness (pp. 295–323). University of North Carolina Press.
MacLeod, R. M. (1965). Evolutionism and Richard Owen 1830–1868: An episode in Darwin’s century. Isis, 56, 259–280.
Martenson, R. L. (1992). “Habit of reason”: Anatomy and anglicanism in restoration England. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 66, 511–535.
Martenson, R. L. (1999). When the brain came out of the skull: Thomas Willis (1621–1675), anatomical technique, and the formation of the ‘cerebral body’ in seventeenth century England. In F. C. Rose (Ed.), A short history of neurology: The British contribution 1660–1910 (pp. 19–35). Butterworth-Heinemann.
Mayr, E. (1982). The growth of biological thought: Diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Harvard University Press.
Molnar, Z. (2004). Thomas Willis: Founder of clinical neuroscience. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5, 329–335.
Montague, M. F. A. (1943). Edward Tyson, MD, FRS 1650–1708, and the rise of human and comparative anatomy in England. American Philosophical Society.
Morgan, T. H., Sturtevant, A. H., Müller, H. J., & Bridges, C. B. (1915). The mechanism of Mendelian inheritance. Henry Holt.
Moxham, N. (2012). Edward Tyson’s Phocaena: A case study in the institutional context of scientific publishing. Notes & Records of the Royal Society, 66, 235–252.
Ogilvie, B. W. (2006). The science of describing: Natural history in Renaissance Europe. University of Chicago Press.
O’Neal, R. (2017). A love of ‘words as words’: Metaphor, analogy, and the brain in the work of Thomas Willis (1621–1675). Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of History, University of London.
Outram, D. (1984). Georges Cuvier: Vocation, science and authority in post-revolutionary France. Manchester University Press.
Owen, R. (1843). Lectures on the comparative anatomy and physiology of the invertebrate animals. Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans.
Owen, R. (1848). On the archetype and homologies of the vertebrate skeleton. Printed by Richard & John Taylor.
Paley, W. (1802). Natural theology: Or, evidences of the existence and attributes of the deity, collected from the appearances of nature. R. Faulder.
Park, K., & Daston, L. (2008). Introduction. Early modern science. In K. Park & L. Daston (Eds.), The Cambridge history of science (Vol. 3, pp. 1–17). Cambridge University Press.
Perrault, C. (ed.) (1671). Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire naturelle des animaux, 2nd edn 1976. Paris.
Perrault, C. (1680–88). Essais de physique. Jean-Baptiste Coignard.
Pinon, L. (2005). Conrad Gessner and the historical depth of Renaissance natural history. In G. Pomata & N. G. Siraisi (Eds.), Historia: Empiricism and erudition in early modern Europe (pp. 241–267). MIT Press.
Pitfeild, A. (translator) (1688). Memoir’s for a natural history of animals. Containing the anatomical descriptions of several creatures dissected by the royal academy of sciences at Paris. Joseph Streater for T. Basset.
Pomata, G. (2011). Observation rising: Birth of an epistemic genre, 1500–1650. In L. Daston & E. Lunbeck (Eds.), Histories of scientific observation (pp. 45–80). University of Chicago Press.
Raven, C. E. (1950). John Ray naturalist: His life and works (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Ray, J. (1691). The wisdom of god manifested in the works of creation. Innys & Manby.
Reeds, K. M., & Kinukawa, T. (2013). Medieval natural history. Medieval scienceIn D. C. Lindberg & M. H. Shank (Eds.), The Cambridge history of science (Vol. 2, pp. 569–589). Cambridge University Press.
Rehbock, P. F. (1983). The philosophical naturalists: Themes in early nineteenth-century British biology. University of Wisconsin Press.
Ridley, M. (1983). The explanation of organic diversity: The comparative method and adaptations for mating. Clarendon Press.
Rieppel, O. C. (1988). Fundamentals of comparative biology. Birkhäuser Verlag.
Rudwick, M. J. S. (1997). Georges Cuvier, fossil bones, and geological catastrophes: New translations and interpretations of the primary texts. University of Chicago Press.
Rupke, N. (2009). Richard Owen: Biology without Darwin (Revised). University of Chicago Press.
Russell, E. S. (1916). Form and function: A contribution to the history of animal morphology. John Murray.
Sahlins, P. (2017). 1668: The year of the animal in France. Zone Books.
Schmitt, S. (2009). From physiology to classification: Comparative anatomy and Vicq d’Azyr’s plan of reform for life sciences and medicine (1774–1794). Science in Context, 22, 145–193.
Schmitt, S. (2016). Studies on animals and the rise of comparative anatomy at and around the Parisian Royal Academy of Sciences in the eighteenth century. Science in Context, 29, 11–54.
Sloan, P. R. (Ed.). (1992). The Hunterian lectures in comparative anatomy, May–June 1837. Richard Owen. University of Chicago Press.
Stebbins, W. C., & Sommers, M. S. (2002). Evolution, perception, and the comparative method. In D. R. Webster, R. R. Fay, & A. N. Popper (Eds.), The evolutionary biology of hearing (pp. 211–227). Springer.
Tyson, E. (1699). Orang-Outang, sive homo sylvestris; Or, the anatomy of a pygmie, compared with that of a monkey, an ape, and a man. T. Bennet.
Tyson, E. (1980). Phocæna or the anatomy of a porpess, dissected at Gresham colledge, with a præliminary discourse concerning anatomy, and a natural history of animals. Printed for B. Tooke.
Willis, T. (1664). Cerebri anatome: Cui accessit nervorum descriptio et usus. J. Martyn and J. Allestry.
Willis, T. (1672). De anima brutorum quae hominis vitalis ac sensitiva est, exercitationes duae. Sheldonian Theatre.
Willis, T. (1681/1684). The anatomy of the brain. Transl. by S. Pordage and included in Dr. Willis's Practice of Physick, being the whole works of that renowned and famous physician (1684). Printed for T. Dring, C. Harper, and J. Leigh. Reprinted by USV Pharmaceutical Corp., Tuckahoe, NY 1971.
Willis, T. (1683). Two discourses concerning the soul of brutes, which is that of the vital and sensitive of man (S. Pordage, Transl.). Printed for T. Dring. Reprinted, with an introduction by S. Diamond by Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, Gainesville, FL 1971.
Woodward, J. (2000). Explanation and invariance in the special sciences. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 51, 197–254.
Wragge-Morley, A. (2018). Imagining the soul: Thomas Willis (1621–1675) on the anatomy of the brain and nerves. In C. Ambrosio & W. Macklemore (Eds.), Imagining the brain: Episodes in the history of brain research (pp. 55–74). New York: Academic Press.
Yartsev, M. M. (2017). The emperor’s new wardrobe: Rebalancing diversity of animal models in neuroscience research. Science, 358, 466–469.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the the journal’s reviewers for comments and suggestions that helped to improve the final version of this paper, and to Dr. Roberto Campo of the Department of Languages, Literatures, & Cultures at UNC Greensboro for his assistance in translating some difficult passages from Belon’s L' histoire de la nature des oyseaux.
Funding
Not applicable.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares that he has no conflict interests.
Ethics approval
Not applicable.
Consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Johnston, T.D. The pre-Darwinian history of the comparative method, 1555–1855. HPLS 43, 118 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-021-00474-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-021-00474-8