Lettres a un Ameriquain sur l'Histoire naturelle, generale et particuliere de Monsieur de Buffon (5 volume set)

Joseph Adrien Lelarge de Lignac; Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc; Joseph Robert Alexandre Duhamel; Albrecht von Haller

Hambourg [i.e. Hamburg], 1951.

5 volume set. 9 parts bound as 5. Includes 2 additional works bound also in, "Lettres d'un Philosophe a un docteur de Sorbonne sur les explications de M. de Buffon" by Duhamel (1754);  "Reflexions sur le Systeme de Generation  De M. De Buffon" by Albrecht von Haller. (Collated: [2], 127, [1], 50; [2], 66, [2], 66, [2]; [2], 31, [1], 96, 69, [1]; [2], 78, [2], 92; [2], 185, [1]; 238, [2]; [2], 238, [2]; [2], 258, [2]; [2], 276, [2] + 138, [3], 67 [4]) 12mo. Bound in full contemporary calf.  Gilt stamping to spines. Some of the hinges cracked, starting. All edges red. Marbled end pages. Pages clean and unmarked. Sabin 41054.  Barbier II, col. 1222; Cobres, p. 210.

Lignac's letters written to an anonymous American (with the help of Bouguer) was an attempt to refute Buffon and Condillac.   Lignac's identified Buffon's attempts to subject natural phenomena to observation and experiment divorced from the literal biblical interpretation and provided an early criticism of the new scientific thinking. "Lignac's criticism was essentially that Buffon "contradicts Genesis in everything," ruins religion, and drives God out of natural history." See Roger, Jacques, "Buffon, A Life in Natural History," p. 192.  The relevance of this work today is in the changes and challenges facing the French Academy as France entered into the modern era.  This is an oversized or heavy book, that requires additional postage for international delivery outside the US.