An idea ahead of its time: Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s mobile botanical laboratory

Abstract

Despite his polemics against the sciences, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) pursues plant studies experimentally during expeditions on foot. While he rejects the experimental science of chemistry in favour of botany, this rejection of chemistry does not entail a rejection of experimentation. Rather, Rousseau objects to the avarice with which he believed chemistry was contaminated. Yet, despite its association with a discredited science, the chemistry laboratory inspires Rousseau’s declaration that the fields adorned with flowers provide the botanist’s “only laboratory”. Proceeding from an eighteenth-century understanding of “experiment” as “test”, Rousseau and his collaborators test others’ reports during their botanical expeditions; (2) use instruments as aids to the senses, and (3) carefully organize the work to be done. These botanical expeditions are likewise experimental in their open-endedness.