106 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



This is a very thick thin end to have been allowed to 

 slip in unawares ; but it is astonishing how little Buffon 

 can see when he likes. I hardly doubt but he would 

 have been well enough pleased to have let the wedge 

 enter still farther, but this fluctuating writer had 

 assigned himself his limits some years before, and 

 meant adhering to them. Again, in this very chapter 

 on Degeneration, to which M. Geoffroy has referred, 

 there are passages on the callosities on a camel's knees, 

 on the llama, and on the haunches of pouched monkeys 

 which might have been written by Dr. Darwin himself.* 

 They will appear more fully presently. Buffon now 

 probably felt that he had said enough, and that others 

 might be trusted to carry the principle farther when 

 the time was riper for its enforcement. 



* See torn. xiv. p. 326, 1766 ; and p. 162 of this volume. 



