BUFFON FULLER QUOTATIONS. 107 



CHAPTER XL 



BUFFON FULLER QUOTATIONS. 



LET us now proceed to those fuller quotations which 

 may answer the double purpose of bearing me out in 

 the view of Buffon's work which I have taken in the 

 foregoing pages, and of inducing the reader to turn to 

 Buffon himself. 



I have already said that from the very commence- 

 ment of his work Buffon showed a proclivity towards 

 considerations which were certain to lead him to a 

 theory of evolution, even though he had not, as I 

 believe he had, already taken a more comprehensive 

 view of the subject than he thought fit to proclaim 

 unreservedly. 



In 1749, at the beginning of his first volume he 

 writes : 



" The first truth that makes itself apparent on serious 

 study of Nature, is one that man may perhaps find 

 humiliating ; it is this that he, too, must take his place 

 in the ranks of animals, being, as he is, an animal in every 

 material point. It is possible also that the instinct of 

 the lower animals will strike him as more unerring, and 

 their industry more marvellous than his own. Then, 

 running his eye over the different objects of which the 

 universe is composed, he will observe with astonishment 



