LAPPARENT, ALBERT-AUGUSTE de. – One of the most authoritative French geologists, b. at Bourges on 30 December 1839, d. in Paris on 5 May 1908. He studied at the École des mines, where he graduated in 1864. In 1875 he obtained the chair of geology and mineralogy at the Institut catholique de Paris, then recently founded. President of the Geological Society of France in 1880, he became a member of the Académie des sciences in 1897 and its secretary in 1907, succeeding M. Berthelot.
Among his works, the following are noteworthy: Traité de géologie (Paris 1882), Cours de minérologie (ibid. 1884), Géographie physique (ibid. 1896), which went through many editions. In scientific study he liked to emphasize certain general facts of philosophical importance, especially the order of nature, the principle and finality of phenomena (Science et philosophie, 2nd ed., Paris 1913, p. 23; cf. pp. 38–39, 115, and Traité de géologie, 2nd ed., ibid. 1885, p. vi).
Profoundly Catholic, L. developed a scientific apologetics: science, rightly understood, leads
to Christian Revelation (cf. Science et apologétique, ibid. 1905). Nature is the work of God, and Revelation has nothing to fear from the sciences; indeed, they confirm Revelation (Science et philosophie, pp. 45–46). In particular, L. highlights, in the history of the formation of the earth, Providence, which prepares the conditions suited to human life and the development of civilization (cf. La Providence créatrice, Paris 1907, p. 63).