SIGORGNE, PIERRE

(b. Rembercourt-aux-Pots, France, 24 October 1719; dMâcon, France, 10 November 1809)

Physics, science popularization

The son of Pierre Sigorgne, a minor judicial official, and Marguerite du Moulin, Sigorgne received his theological degrees at the Sorbonne and assumed the chair of philosophy at the Collége Duplessis (Paris) in 1740. He quickly established himself as a gifted educator and popularizer of science, and was prominent in introducing Newtonian theories into the French university curriculum. His promising Paris career ended, however, when he was arrested in 1749 as the alleged author of satirical verses concerning Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour. He spent the remainder of his life in exile at Mâcon, where he continued his scientific work while proving himself a distinguished ecclesiastical administrator. Sigorgne maintained an active correspondence with many of the important scientists and Philosophes of the period. Winning a reputation as a genial and enlightened reconciler of science and theology. He was named correspondant of the Académie des Sciences in 1778 and correspondant of the Institut de France in 1803, and was one of the founders of the Mâcon Academy.

Sigorne’s Institutions léibnitiennes (1767), an accurate but critical account of Leibniz’s cosmological theories, contributed to the more information discussion of German philosophy in France; but his main importance for the history of science lies in his vigorous and effective popularization of Newtonian ideas. Although the introduction of Newton’s theories into France was well advanced by 1740, Cartesian ideas still exerted a powerful influence. Sigorgne’s courses of lectures at the Collège Duplessis provided a detailed and sophisticated treatment of recent physical theories, notably the Newtonian concept of universal gravitation; and his courses in philosophy included systematic instruction in mathematics and contributed to the spread of ideas on the calculus.

His cautious advocacy of Newtonian science was broadened with the publication of Sigorgne’s Examen et refutation des leçons de physique expliquées par M. de Moliâres’s (1741). Primarily an attack on Privat de Molièinfluential attempt to reconcile Cartesian and Newtonian theories, the Examen demolished the vortex theory as emended by Privat de Molières to obviate the major objections to Cartesian physics. Sigorgne forcefully demonstrated the Newtonian arguments for the physical instability of the hypothetical vortices and the mathematical incompatibility between vortex motion and Kepler’s laws. His Institution newtoniennes (1747),a clear introduction no Newtonian mathematical and physical principles, contributed to the acceptance of the attraction theory by the French scientific community. A. atin résumeé of the Institutions newtoniennes (1748) was rapidly recognized as a standard Newtonian textbook in Western Europe.

The most successful of Sigorgne’s efforts to apply the concept of universal gravitation is his explanation of capillary phenomena by the laws of attraction, which was awarded a prize by the Rouen Academy in 1748. His chemical theories, in contrast, were of little significance. Sigorgne shared the misguided vision of those eighteenthcentury Newtonians who sought to explain observed chemical behavior on the basis of interparticulate forces, the operation of which would be subject to exact mathematical treatment. Thus, ironically, those ideas that had been skillfully exploited by Sigorgne in defense of the new physics at mid-century reappeared at the end of his long career in a series of ill-tempered attacks on modern chemistry.

A minor but respected savant of Enlightenment France, Sigorgne used his gifts of exposition to bring developing scientific ideas before a broad public.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Sigorgne’s first important writings, his polemics against Privat de Molières and his Cartesian supporters, include Examen et refutation des lecons de physique expliqées par M. de Molières au Collège royal de France (Pars, 1741); Réplique è M. de Molières on démonstration physico-mathématique de l’insuffisance et de l’impossibilité des tourbillons (Paris, 1741); and “A Physico-Mathematical Demonstration of the Impossibility and Insufficiency of Vortices,” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 41 no. 457 (1740), 409–435.

His major works is Institutions newtoniennes, ou introduction à la philosophie de Newton (Paris, 1747; 2nd ed., 1769). A Latin résumé of Institutions newtoniennes, Astronomiae physicae justa Newtoni principia breviarium, methodo scolastica ad usum studiosae juventutis (Paris,m 1748), was widely used in France and Germany as a standard Newtonian textbook and was translated into Italian by Giulio Carbonara as Istituzioni neutoniane (Lucca, 1757).

Sigorgne published a summary of his prize essay on the effects of attraction in capillary tube phenomena as an appendix to the 2nd ed. of Institutions newtoniennes: the essay had been submitted to the Rouen Academy in 1748 as “Dissertatio physico-mecanica de ascensu et suspensione liquorum intra tubos capillares.” Sigorgne’s critical exposition of Leibnizian cosmology is Institutions léibnitiennes, ou précis de la monadologie (Lyons, 1767). An example of Sigorgne’s enduring fascination with Newtonian explanations is the merely curious Examen nouveau de la chimie moderne, avec une dissertation sur la force (Mâcon, 1807).

II. Secondary Literature. The fullest recent account of Sigorgne’s life and work is Martial Griveaud, “Un physicien oublié du XVIIIe siècle: L’Abbé Pierre Sigorgne de Rembercourt-aux-Pots,” in Annales de l’est, 4th ser., 3 (1935), 77–107. J.M. Guerrier, “étude critique sur les oeuvres de l’Abbé Sigorgne,” in Annales de l’Acadéeacutemie de Micon, 3rd ser., 14 (1909), 432–458, is concerned mainly with an analysis of Sigorgne’s literary output but has some brief comments on his scientific writings. A short account of Sigorgne’s life and work appears in F. Hoefer, ed., Nouvelle biographie générale, XLIII (1864), 988–989. Useful comments on the significance of Sigorgne’s university courses appear in René Taton, Enseignement et diffusion des sciences en France au XVIIIe siécle (Paris, 1964), 142, 627.

Martin Fichman