102 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



closely related. This is bringing two and two together 

 with sufficient closeness for all practical purposes. 



Should not M. Geoffroy's question, then, have rather 

 been " Who has ever pronounced more grudgingly, even 

 in an early volume, &c., &c., and who has more com- 

 pletely neutralized whatever concession he might 

 appear to have been making ? " 



Nor does the only other passage which M. Geoffroy 

 brings forward to prove that Buffon was originally a 

 believer in the fixity of species bear him out much 

 better. It is to be found on the opening page of a 

 brief introduction to the wild animals. M. Geoffrey 

 quotes it thus: "We shall see Nature dictating her 

 laws, so simple yet so unchangeable, and imprinting 

 her own immutable characters upon every species." 

 But M. Geoffroy does not give the passage which, on 

 the same page, admits mutability among domesticated 

 animals, in the case of which he declares we find 

 Nature "rarement perfectionnee, souvent alteree, 

 defiguree;" nor yet does he deem it necessary to 

 show that the context proves that this unchangeable- 

 ness of wild animals is only relative ; and this he should 

 certainly have done, for two pages later on Buffon 

 speaks of the American tigers, lions, and panthers 

 as being " degenerated, if their original nature was 

 cruel and ferocious ; or, rather, they have experienced 

 the effect of climate, and under a milder sky have 

 assumed a milder nature, their excesses have become 

 moderated, and by the changes which they have under- 

 gone they have become more in conformity with the 

 country they inhabit." * 



* Tom. vi. p. 58, 1756. 



