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Richard Bradley - étude de quelques illustrations pré-évolutionnistes

2015

Richard Bradley (1688-1732) is an English botanist more particularly known for his books on gardening and exotic plants. He published in 1721 a treatise entitled A Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature, in which he offers the reader a complete and systematic description of the natural world organized in the best way by a benevolent God according to the principle of the Great Chain of Being. He discovers plenty of evidence of a divine order via the use of the microscope and the recent discoveries on plant sexual reproduction. However, a study of some of the illustrations reveals some doubts about the Great Chain of Being, notably regarding the place of man within nature.