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BONNET, CHARLES (172o–1793)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 211 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BONNET, See also:CHARLES (172o–1793) , Swiss naturalist and philosophical writer, was See also:born at See also:Geneva on the 13th of See also:March 1720, of a See also:French See also:family driven into See also:Switzerland by the religious persecution in the 16th See also:century. He made See also:law his profession, but his favourite pursuit was the study of natural See also:science. The See also:account of the See also:ant-See also:lion in N. A. Pluche's Spectacle de la nature, which he read in his sixteenth See also:year, turned his See also:attention to See also:insect See also:life. He procured R. A. F. de See also:Reaumur's See also:work on See also:insects, and with the help of live specimens succeeded in adding many observations to those of Reaumur and Pluche. In 1740 Bonnet communicated to the See also:academy of sciences a See also:paper containing a See also:series of experiments establishing what is now termed parthenogenesis in See also:aphides or See also:tree-lice, which obtained for him the See also:honour of being admitted a corresponding member of the academy. In 1741 he began to study See also:reproduction by See also:fusion and the regeneration of lost parts in the See also:freshwater See also:hydra and other animals; and in the following year he discovered that the respiration of caterpillars and butterflies is performed by pores, to which the name of stigmata has since been given. In 1743 he was admitted a See also:fellow of the Royal Society; and in the same year he became a See also:doctor of laws—his last See also:act in connexion with a profession which had ever been distasteful to him. His first published work appeared in 1745, entitled Traite d'insectologie, in which were collected his various discoveries regarding insects, along with a See also:preface on the development of germs and the See also:scale of organized beings.

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Botany, particularly the leaves of See also:plants, next attracted his attention; and after several years of diligent study, rendered irksome by the increasing weakness of his eyesight, he published in 1754 one of the most See also:original and interesting of his See also:works, Recherches sur l'usage See also:des feuilles clans See also:les plantes; in which among other things he advances many considerations tending to show (as has quite recently been done by See also:Francis See also:Darwin) that plants are endowed with See also:powers of sensation and discernment. But Bonnet's See also:eye-sight, which threatened to fail altogether, caused him to turn to See also:philosophy. In 1754 his Essai de psychologie was published anonymously in See also:London. This was followed by the Essai analytique sur les facultes de l'dme (See also:Copenhagen, 1760), in which he develops his views regarding the physiological conditions of See also:mental activity. He returned to See also:physical science, but to the speculative See also:side of it, in his Considerations sur les See also:corps organises (See also:Amsterdam, 1762), designed to refute the theory of epigenesis, and to explain and defend the See also:doctrine of pre-existent germs. In his Contemplation de la nature (Amsterdam, 1764–1765; translated into See also:Italian, See also:German, See also:English and Dutch), one of hismost popular and delightful works, he sets forth, in eloquent See also:language, the theory that all the beings in nature See also:form a See also:gradual scale rising from lowest to highest, without any break in its continuity. His last important work was the Palingenesie philosophique (Geneva, 1769–1770); in it he treats of the past and future of living beings, and supports the See also:idea of the survival of all animals, and the perfecting of their faculties in a future See also:state. Bonnet's life was uneventful. He seems never to have See also:left Switzerland, nor does he appear to have taken any See also:part in public affairs except for the See also:period between 1752 and 1768, during which he was a member of the coupcil of the See also:republic. The last twenty five years of his life he spent quietly in the See also:country, at Genthod, near Geneva, where he died after a See also:long and painful illness on the 20th of May 1793. His wife was a See also:lady of the family of De la Rive. They had no See also:children, but Madame Bonnet's See also:nephew, the celebrated H.

B. de See also:

Saussure, was brought up as their son. Bonnet's philosophical See also:system may be outlined as follows. See also:Man is a See also:compound of two distinct substances, mind and See also:body, the one immaterial and the other material. All knowledge originates in sensations; sensations follow (whether as physical effects or merely as sequents Bonnet will not say) vibrations in the nerves appropriate to each; and lastly, the nerves are made to vibrate by See also:external physical stimulus. A See also:nerve once set in See also:motion by a particular See also:object tends to reproduce that motion; so that when it a second See also:time receives an impression from the same object it vibrates with less resistance. The sensation accompanying this increased flexibility in the nerve is, according to Bonnet, the See also:condition of memory. When reflection—that is, the active See also:element in mind—is applied to the acquisition and See also:combination of sensations, those abstract ideas are formed which, though generally distinguished from, are thus merely sensations in combination only. That which puts the mind into activity is See also:pleasure or See also:pain; happiness is the end of human existence*. Bonnet's metaphysical theory is based on two principles borrowed from Leibnitz—first, that there are not successive acts of creation, but that the universe is completed by the single original act of the divine will, and thereafter moves on by its own inherent force; and secondly, that there is no break in the continuity of existence. The divine Being origin-ally created a multitude of germs in a graduated scale, each with an inherent See also:power of self-development. At every successive step in the progress of the universe, these germs, as progressively modified, advance nearer to perfection; if some advanced and others did not there would be a See also:gap in the continuity of the See also:chain. Thus not man only but all other forms of existence are immortal.

Nor is man's mind alone immortal; his body also will pass into the higher See also:

stage, not, indeed, the body he now possesses, but a finer one of which the germ at See also:present exists within him. It is impossible, however, to reach See also:absolute perfection, because the distance is See also:infinite. In this final proposition Bonnet violates his own principle of continuity, by postulating an See also:interval between the highest created being and the Divine. It is also difficult to understand whether the See also:constant advance to perfection is performed by each individual, or only by each See also:race of beings as a whole. There seems, in fact, to be an oscillation between two distinct but analogous doctrines —that of the constantly increasing See also:advancement of the individual in future stages of existence, and that of the constantly increasing advancement of the race as a whole according to the successive evolutions of the globe. Bonnet's See also:complete works appeared at See also:Neuchatel in 1779-1783, partly revised by himself. An English See also:translation of certain portions of the Palingenesie philosophique was published in 1787, under the See also:title, Philosophical and See also:Critical Inquiries concerning See also:Christianity. See also A. Lemoine, Charles Bonnet (See also:Paris, 1850) ; the duc de Caraman, Charles Bonnet, philosophe et naturaliste (Paris, 1859) Max Off ner, See also:Die Psychologie C. B. (See also:Leipzig, 1893) ; oh. Speck, in loll., See also:Arch. f.

Gesch. d. Philos. x. (1897), Xi. (1897), pp. 58 xi. (1898) pp. 1-211; J. Trembley, See also:

Vie privee et litteraire de C. B. (See also:Bern, 1794).

End of Article: BONNET, CHARLES (172o–1793)

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