Natural Catastrophe in
Buffon’s Histoire naturelle:
Earth, Science, Aesthetics, Anthropology
Benoît de Baere
Abstract: Buffon’s manifest interest in all forms of natural disaster
embraces three main discursive approaches: that of the pioneering
earth scientist, that of the philosophe focussing on the human experience of natural catastrophe, and that of the aesthete getting to grips
with the sublime character of nature’s most violent phenomena. Yet
these three discourses are far from being mutually compatible. Taking
earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves as primary examples, this
chapter examines the ways in which the Histoire naturelle attempts to
reconcile its discordant “voices” into a unique, totalizing vision of the
natural world.
Throughout the weighty in-quarto volumes of Buffon’s Histoire
naturelle the reader encounters again and again the fascination that the
French naturalist felt for natural catastrophes – for those earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions and floods which have shaped the face of the Earth
and determined the fate of life on our planet. These events are, however, approached from a number of different angles, for Buffon is not
content to provide explanations, he also expresses his opinion on the
attitudes which mankind should adopt when confronted with danger
on this scale, and in doing so his writing betrays the particular aesthetic fascination that the violence and brutality of unbridled natural
power aroused in him.
In this article, it is my intention to study three divergent but
complementary approaches to natural catastrophe, those of earth sci-