78 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



CHAPTER IX. 



BOFFON'S METHOD THE IRONICAL CHARACTER OF 

 HIS WORK. 



BUFFON'S idea of a method amounts almost to the 

 denial of the possibility of method at all. " The true 

 method," he writes, " is the complete description and 

 exact history of each particular object," * and later on 

 he asks, " is it not more simple, more natural and more 

 true to call an ass an ass, and a cat a cat, than to say, 

 without knowing why, that an ass is a horse, and a cat 

 a lynx." f 



He admits such divisions as between animals and 

 vegetables, or between vegetables and minerals, but that 

 done, he rejects all others that can be founded on the 

 nature of things themselves. He concludes that one 

 who could see things in their entirety and without 

 preconceived opinions, would classify animals according 

 to the relations in which he found himself standing 

 towards them : 



" Those which he finds most necessary and useful to 

 him will occupy the first rank ; thus he will give the 

 precedence among the lower animals to the dog and the 

 horse ; he will next concern himself with those which 

 without being domesticated, nevertheless occupy the 



* Tom. i. p. 24, 1749. f Tom. i. p. 40, 1749. 



