Plants and animals as organized or organic bodies

In the early eighteenth century, most chemists were interested in plants only inasmuch they were applicable as herbal drugs and materials for the making of more 

On the notion of organization in eighteenth-century natural history, see Schiller [1978] and Roger [1997]. For life and work of Bonnet and Buffon, see GUlispie [1970-1980] vol. II pp. 286f. and 576ff., respectively. 

On the tension between Buffon s questioning of the traditional tripartite distinction, along with his idea of a chain of beings and his demarcation of animals and plants from minerals via the notion of organization, see Roger [1997]. 

In the three decades that followed, most chemists studied the proximate principles of plants and animals without demarcating principles that fermented from principles 

46 Ibid. p. 374 our emphasis. Here our translation largely follows the contemporary English translation see Macquer [1771] vol. 1 p. 363f. 

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