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HUTTON, JAMES (b. Edinburgh, Scotland, 3 June
1726; d. Edinburgh, 26 March 1797), geology, agriculture,
physical sciences, philosophy.
The treatise, based partly on Hutton's own experience
and partly on the practice of the most successful
husbandmen of his time, covers all branches of farming
and animal husbandry, including implements and
economics, and where appropriate, Hutton applied
his scientific knowledge.
The most noteworthy part of the treatise appears
in a section dealing with animal husbandry. Here
Hutton outlined a theory of evolution. The question
he raised was “how those varieties, which we find in
every species, are procured; whether by simple propagation
from original models, which had been created
with the species, or whether from certain laws of variation,
in the process of propagation of each species by
the influence of physical causes” (p. 735). Using the
dog as his example of a “species,” Hutton found it
“almost inconceivable” that the numerous different
types of dog, “so wisely adapted to various different
purposes, ... should have arisen from the influence
of external causes alone” (p. 736), unless “some intended
principle in the original constitution of the
animal” had operated. He then argued that without
this factor, if several varieties or species of dog had
existed originally, promiscuous interbreeding would
have resulted ultimately in the production of a variety
of dog with indefinite characteristics, a “compound
species” or mongrel, and all the original
varieties would probably have been lost; and we
should never have seen “that beautiful illustration of
design” exemplified in the different types of dog.
Hutton therefore suggested that originally the
“species” had existed in only one form, and there was
inherent in the constitution of the animal “a general
law or rule of seminal variation” which would bring
about constant changes in the animal, to a greater
or lesser extent, “by the influence of external causes.”
Thus we should find varieties in the species “propagating
for a long course of time under the influence
of different circumstances, or in different situations;
and we should in this see a beautiful contrivance for
preserving the perfection of the animal form, in the
variety of the species.... To see this beautiful system
of animal life (which is also applicable to vegetables)”
(pp. 738-739), Hutton wrote, we must consider that
... in the indefinite variation of the breed the form
best adapted to the exercise of those instinctive arts,
by which the species is to live, will be most certainly
continued in the propagation of this animal, and will
be always tending more and more to perfect itself by
the natural variation which is continually taking place.
Thus, for example, where dogs are to live by the swiftness
of their feet and the sharpness of their sight, the
form best adapted to that end will be the most certain
of remaining, while the forms that are least adapted
to this manner of the chace will be the first to perish
[p. 739].
Hutton's conclusion that there is some inherent
mechanism in “species,” such as seminal variation,
which could lead to the establishment of animal
varieties may possibly have been suggested to him
by his knowledge of the animal breeding experiments
carried out by the eighteenth-century agriculturist
Robert Bakewell, to whom he refers elsewhere in this
section of the “Principles.”
Physical Sciences.
Hutton's interest in the physical
sciences, particularly chemistry, physics, and meteorology,
extended over many years, during which he
kept himself informed of their progress. Toward the
end of his life he published a three-part book entitled
Dissertations on ... Natural Philosophy, which is of
considerable interest to the historian of science. The
conclusions he reached in this work were often original
and sometimes supported by experiments he
had carried out himself. The principal subjects discussed
are meteorology, phlogiston, and the theory
of matter.
Part 1 contains four dissertations on meteorology,
of which three, dealing with Hutton's theory of rain
and his answer to DeLuc's criticism of the theory,
had been previously published by the Royal Society
of Edinburgh (1788, 1790). The fourth contains a
discussion on winds. Hutton attributed the origin of
rain to a mixture of air currents of different temperatures,
saturated or nearly saturated with moisture. His
theory attracted attention for some years, including
a favorable comment from John Dalton as late as
1819, although J. D. Leslie had already shown it to
fail on qualitative grounds in 1813.
Part 2 is entitled a “Chymical Dissertation Concerning
Phlogiston, or the Principle of Fire,” a subject
evidently of particular interest to Hutton. It had been
the topic of a paper he read to the Royal Society
of Edinburgh in 1788, following an address by Sir
James Hall on Lavoisier's new chemical ideas, to
which Hall had been converted after visiting Lavoisier
in Paris. These papers and the accompanying
discussion occupied five meetings, but they were not
published.
Hutton accepted the major advances made by
Lavoisier, but took the view that the concept of
phlogiston had been too hastily rejected. He did not
accept Lavoisier's concept of calorique; in fact he
strongly opposed it. His view was that heat, light, and
electricity were all modifications of what he called
“solar substance.” Hutton also considered phlogiston
to be some form of the solar substance, a principle
of inflammability, without gravity, which could be
transferred from one substance to another. He