Bonnet, CHARLES DE

Bonnet, CHARLES DE, an eminent naturalist and philosopher, born at Geneva, 13th March 1720, was educated for the law, but devoted himself at a very early age to the study of natural history. A dissertation on aphides procured his election, in 1740, as a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences; and in 1743 he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society. At this time he was engaged in researches concerning polypi, the structure of the tapeworm, the respiration of insects, &c.; and in 1745 appeared his Traité d'Insectologie. His Recherches sur l'Usage des Feuilles des Plantes (1754) contained the result of much observation on important points of vegetable physiology. A severe inflammation of the eyes, putting a stop for two years to his researches in natural history, gave another direction to his studies, and he published several works on psychology, in which materialistic views decidedly prevail: the body is represented as the original source of all the inclinations of the soul, and all ideas are referred to movements of the nervous fibres; but his religious convictions remained always strong and unshaken, and in his Idées sur l'État Futur des Êtres Vivants, ou Palingénésie Philosophique (2 vols. 1769), he endeavoured to demonstrate the reasonableness of the Christian revelation. In this work he also maintained the future life of all living creatures, and the perfection of their faculties in a future state. His Considérations sur les Corps Organisés (2 vols. 1762) is largely devoted to an examination of the theories of generation. He died on 20th May 1793. Collective editions of his works (8 vols. and 18 vols.) appeared in 1779 and 1788. See the monographs on him by Lemoine (1850) and the Duc de Caraman (1859).