Table Of Contenta history of biology
A History of Biology
michel mor ange
translated by  
teresa lavender fagan &  
joseph muise
prince ton university press
princet  on & oxford
En glish translation copyright © 2021 by Prince ton University Press
Originally published in French as Une histoire de la biologie © Éditions du 
Seuil, 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Morange, Michel, author.
Title: A history of biology / Michel Morange ; translated by Teresa  
Lavender Fagan and Joseph Muise.
Other titles: histoire de la biologie. En glish
Description: Prince ton, NJ : Prince ton University Press, [2021] | 
Originally published in French as Une histoire de la biologie by 
Éditions du Seuil, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and 
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020035292 (print) | LCCN 2020035293 (ebook) | 
ISBN 9780691175409 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780691188782 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Biology— History. | Life sciences— History.
Classification: LCC QH305 .M6713 2021 (print) | LCC QH305 (ebook) | 
DDC 570– dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020035292
LC ebook rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020035293
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Editorial: Ingrid Gnerlich and Arthur Werneck
Production Editorial: Kathleen Cioffi
Jacket Design: Heather Hansen
Production: Jacqueline Poirier
Publicity: Sara Henning- Stout and Katie Lewis
Copyeditor: Maia Vaswani
This book has been composed in Arno
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1
Contents
Preface  xv
  1  Ancient Greece and Rome  1
The Facts  1
The Birth of Biology  1
Overview of Ancient Greek and Roman 
Biological Sciences  2
Hippocratic Medicine  3
Aristotle  4
Galen’s Physiology  8
Pliny the Elder’s Natu ral History  9
The Atomists  10
Historical Overview  11
The Role of Experimentation in Greek 
Science and Particularly in Life Sciences  11
Anaximander and the Atomists: The Futile 
Search for Pioneers  13
Con temporary Relevance  17
Mechanistic and Molecular Explanations  17
The Role of Analogy  18
v
vi  Contents
The Beginnings of the Chain of Being  19
Pliny’s Legacy  20
Ever- Present Finalism  20
  2  The  Middle Ages and Arab- Muslim Science  22
The Facts  23
The Arab- Muslim World  23
The  Middle Ages in the West  26
Historical Overview  28
Con temporary Relevance  31
Scientific Pro gress Is Not a Given  31
Less Obvious Contributions to the 
Development of Science  32
  3  The Re nais sance (Sixteenth  Century)  33
The Facts  34
Pro gress in Anatomy and Depictions of the 
 Human Body  34
Books on Natu ral History  38
Alchemy in Medicine: From Paracelsus to 
Van Helmont  41
Historical Overview  45
A Fascination with Dissections  45
The Role of Alchemy  46
Changes in the Social Structure of Science  47
Con temporary Relevance  48
Finding the Right Distance from the Past  48
Contents  vii
New Techniques Bring New Sources of Error  50
Aging as a Form of Poisoning  50
  4  The Age of Classicism (Seventeenth  Century)  52
The Facts  52
The Discovery of Circulation  52
The Development of Quantitative 
Experiments  57
The Invention of the Microscope and Its 
Consequences  63
Historical Overview  67
The Not- So- Obvious Case of Circulation  67
The Mechanistic Model of Life and Its 
Limitations  67
The Incomprehensible Theory of 
Preformationism  69
Invisible and Indirect Changes  70
Con temporary Relevance  72
The Machines in Front of Us  72
Vestiges of Preformation Theory  72
Accepting the Plurality of Approaches 
in Biology  73
Translational Medicine Is Not New  73
  5  The Enlightenment (Eigh teenth  Century)  75
The Facts  75
Vitalism  75
Classification: Linnaeus versus Buffon  78
viii  Contents
Reproductive Physiology  86
The Role of Breathing Becomes Clear  94
Historical Overview  97
Variations on Vitalism  97
Classification versus Evolution  99
Classifying  Humans  99
Priestley and Lavoisier: Only the First Step  100
Con temporary Relevance  101
A Natur al Classification?  101
Comparing Plants and Animals  102
Maupertuis, the  Father of Self- Organization?  103
  6  The Nineteenth  Century (Part I): Embryology, 
Cell Biology, Microbiology, and Physiology  105
The Facts  106
Embryology Becomes an Established 
Discipline  106
The Emergence of Cell Theory  109
The Rise of Germ Theory  120
Physiology’s Golden Age  131
Historical Overview  143
The Roots of Cell Theory  143
Scholars Trapped by Their Own Philosophical 
Ideas?  145
The Tension between Chemical Explanations 
and Structural Models  150
Was Embryology Holding Out for Evolution?  151
1859: A Remarkable Year  151
Contents  ix
Con temporary Relevance  152
The Disappearance of Traditional Disciplines 
in Biology  153
The Endogenous or Exogenous Origins of 
Diseases  153
The Debate on Ce re bral Localization  155
  7  The Nineteenth C  entury (Part II): The Theory  
of Evolution, the Theory of Heredity,  
and Ecol ogy  157
The Facts  157
Lamarck: An Early Version of the Theory 
of Evolution  157
The Contribution of Georges Cuvier  163
The Second Wave of Transformism: Darwin  169
The Theory of Heredity  177
The Reception of Darwin’s Theory and the 
Eclipse of Darwinism  188
From Biogeography to Ecol ogy  199
Historical Overview  203
A Moving History  203
The Birth of a Science of Heredity  204
Biology: A Comparative Science, according to 
Auguste Comte  205
Darwinism and Ecol ogy: A Complex 
Relationship  206
Biogeography  208
The Epistemological Originality of the 
Darwinian Model of Natu ral Se lection  209