While a thick vein of scepticism marked Enlightenment thinkers’ studies, such investigations cannot be divorced from their concurrent quest to merge the wondrous and the rational. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in philosophers’ investigations of merpeople. Examining European gentlemen’s debates over mermaids and tritons illuminate their willingness to embrace wonder in their larger quest to understand the origins of humankind. Naturalists utilized a wide range of methodologies to critically study these seemingly wondrous creatures and, in turn, assert the reality of merpeople as evidence of humanity’s aquatic roots. As with other creatures they encountered in their global travels, European philosophers utilized various theories—including those of racial, biological, taxonomical, and geographic difference—to understand merpeople’s place in the natural world. By the second half of the eighteenth century, certain thinkers integrated merpeople into their explanation of humanity’s origins, thus bringing this phenomenon full circle.

中文翻译：

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“自然界中确实存在这样的怪物”：18 世纪欧洲的美人鱼、海卫一和奇迹科学

虽然启蒙思想家的研究充满了怀疑主义色彩，但这种研究不能脱离他们同时追求将奇妙与理性融合在一起的追求。也许这在哲学家对人鱼的调查中最为明显。考察欧洲绅士关于美人鱼和海卫一的辩论，可以看出他们愿意在了解人类起源的更大探索中拥抱奇迹。博物学家利用广泛的方法来批判性地研究这些看似奇妙的生物，进而断言人鱼的现实是人类水生根源的证据。与他们在全球旅行中遇到的其他生物一样，欧洲哲学家利用了各种理论——包括种族、生物学、分类学、和地理差异——了解人鱼在自然界中的位置。到了 18 世纪下半叶，某些思想家将人鱼纳入他们对人类起源的解释中，从而使这一现象得以完整循环。