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