2 Biographieal Memoir of M. Daiihenton. 



which he was afterwards so great an ornament, those of Win- 

 slow, Hiinauld, and Antoine de Jussieii. His father"*s death, 

 which happened in 1736, leaving him free to follow his inclina- 

 tion openly, he took his degrees at Reims in 1740 and 1741, 

 and returned to his native place, where he limited his ambition 

 to the practice of his art ; but his destiny reserved him for a 

 more brilliant theatre. 



The little town in which he was born, had also given birth to a 

 man, whose independent fortune, personal and mental accomplish- 

 ments, and violent taste for pleasure, destined him for any career 

 but that of science, to which, however, he was incessantly drawn by 

 that irresistible propensity, the almost unfailing indication of ex- 

 traordinary talents. Buffon, for it is he of whom we speak, long 

 uncertain as to the object to which he should apply his genius, 

 directed his attention successively to geometry, physics, and agri- 

 culture. At length, his friend Dufay, who, during his short 

 administration, raised the ' Jardin des Plantes' from the deplor- 

 able state into which it had sunk by the inactivity of the first 

 physicians, who were until then superintendants of that esta- 

 blishment, having bestowed upon him the reversion of its charge, 

 BufFon^s choice was ultimately fixed upon natural history, and 

 he saw opening before him that vast career which he pursued 

 with so much glory. He at first measured its full extent; he 

 perceived at a glance what he had to do, — what it was in his 

 power to accomplish, — and where the aid of others would be re- 

 quisite. 



Overloaded from its commencement with the undigested eru- 

 dition of Aldrovandus, Gesner, and Johnston, natural history was 

 afterwards mutilated by the nomenclators. Bay, Klein, even 

 Linnaeus at that time, presented nothing but bare catalogues, 

 written in a barbarous language, and which, with all their seem- 

 ing preciseness, with all the care which their authors appeared 

 to have taken, to place in them only what could be at all times 

 verified by observation, still contained a multitude of errors, in 

 the details, in the distinctive characters, and in the methodical 

 distributions. To restore life and motion to this cold and inani- 

 mate body; to paint natur<3 as she is, always young, always in 

 action ; to trace the wonderful harmony of all her parts ; to 

 sketch the laws by which they are bound together into a single 



