ABSTRACT
In 1789, the first volume of Economic Memories for the Development of the Portuguese Agriculture, Arts and Industry, the famous Italian naturalist Domingos Vandelli presented a study on the natural products of the Portuguese colonies, highlighting that, among those production activities, “the gold mines are those that are the dearest, and that are universally more cared about than agriculture” (Memorias, 1789, p. 187). To him, the gold mines should not be the main concern and objective of work in Brazil, but rather “its other natural production obtained through agriculture”. (Memorias, 1789, p. 188). All of the most “wise politicians”, carries on the erudite in his diagnosis, are well aware of the mistake that is in the exaggerated appreciation of the gold mines; in other words:
The tone of the memories of that professor, who was ahead of the major educational reform and of the introduction of studies on natural history in Portugal, denounced the state of the Portuguese economy and warned about the need to value and take advantage of agriculture in its main colony, considering the gradual exhaustion of the mines of precious metals at the end of the 18th century. Hence, it is known that the interest in the Brazilian nature appeared on the Portuguese writings since
scientific conception announced by the erudite men of that society, which favours the desire to learn and to adopt new points of view on arts and sciences, became affiliated, among other names, to the stream of thinking of the French encyclopaedists, which played a decisive historical role in establishing pragmatic relationships between the literate and the rest of society. Diderot (2015), for instance, claimed “an increase in natural science, anatomy, chemistry, and experimental physics as a first step in the reform of society”. Science, in this stage, won a social dimension and the so-called scientific studies came to be understood as capital for the progress of nations. In that sense, the Royal Academy of Science of Lisbon sought to develop a knowledge that would instruct the people and promote the State and its economy. That new scientific approach, as remembered by the Academy members, argued that such a course not only offered “abundant field to the operations of chemists and anatomists, but [enriched] the farmer, the merchant and the artist, and with them the State” (Memorias, 1797, prologo); in other words, it would be a sort of exaltation of the literate and the scientists as the practical man and the man of action, who would carry out the improvement of society through the inventions and discoveries that are useful to the welfare, health and benefit of the country. Thus, that approach would accomplish the “public utility”, as defended by the Academy members.
