BUFFON FULLER QUOTATIONS. 159 



and having thrown the responsibility on the original 

 authors of the passages he quotes, he excuses himself 

 for having quoted them on the ground that " everything 

 may seem important in the history of a brute which 

 resembles man so nearly," and then insists upon the 

 points of difference between the Orang-outang and 

 ourselves. They do not, however, in Buffon's hands 

 come to much, until the end of the chapter, when, after a 

 resume dwelling on the points of resemblance, the differ- 

 ences are again emphatically declared to have the best 

 of it. 



I need not follow Buffon through his description of 

 the remaining monkeys. It comprises 250 pp., and is 

 confined to details with which we have no concern ; but 

 the last chapter " De la Degeneration des Animaux " 

 deserves much fuller quotation than my space will allow 

 me to make from it. The chapter is very long, com- 

 prising, as I have said, over sixty quarto pages. It is 

 impossible, therefore, for me to give more than an out- 

 line of its contents. 



Causes or Means of the Transformation of Species. 



The human race is declared to be the one most capable 

 of modification, all its different varieties being descended 

 from a common stock, and owing their more superficial 

 differences to changes of climate, while their profounder 

 ones, such as woolly hair, flat noses, and thick lips, are 

 due to differences of diet, which again will vary with the 

 nature of the country inhabited by any race. Changes 

 will be exceedingly gradual ; it will take centuries of 

 unbroken habit to bring about modifications which can 



