The Relationship Between a Green, Low-carbon and Recycling Economy, Economic Policy and Industrial Structure Development

This article critically examines Charles Bonnet’s seminal contributions to experimental science, particularly through his influential work, ‘Research on the Use of Leaves.’ The primary objective is to delineate the functions and forms of natural experimentation as they were understood and practiced in the mid-18th century. During this period, scientists esteemed experimentation as the zenith of scientific proof, acutely cognizant of its multifaceted functional and typological aspects. Their methodology was characterized by a detailed narration of research methodologies, fostering a ‘rhetoric of transparency’ in scientific discourse. Nevertheless, the advent of new norms in scientific discourse during the 19th century, coupled with a paradigmatic philosophical shift in the 20th century, resulted in the marginalization of empirical practices of the Enlightenment era. Contemporary historians are now endeavoring to reconcile significant terminological discrepancies and to recontextualize the divergent methodologies among natural historians of that epoch. This involves a critical distinction between exploratory and demonstrative (or discriminant) forms of experimentation. Bonnet’s systematic preference for discriminant experimentation serves as a quintessential example of the logical approach in natural history. However, this perspective does not wholly represent the 18th-century ‘art of observation,’ which embraced a plethora of methodologies including taxonomy, anatomical dissection, chemical analysis, and physical measurements.