APPENDIX. 339 



it does not present that unity of plan that we should 

 have expected to find in the writings of so great a man. 

 It is not, perhaps, the less interesting on that account, 

 for here we may follow, step by step, the progressive 

 development of his views. He not only laboured inces- 

 santly to improve his style, but he was indefatigable in 

 his endeavours to increase his mental culture. Thus he 

 was ever as ready to abandon a false idea, as to expunge 

 a feeble expression, and on this account some of his 

 later writings are very superior to those which preceded 

 them both as to matter and style. 



Buffon lived to see his own statue erected in the Jardin 

 du Roi, bearing this inscription : Natura par Ingenium : 

 a homage which he accepted as a just tribute to his 

 merits.* After his death, his services in the cause of 

 science were much depreciated by many naturalists, 

 whose opinion gradually spread to the public, and in 

 our own time he is looked upon by many as a mere 

 compiler. Such a result was inevitable, for Buffon and 

 Linnaeus were cotemporaries, and the views which the 

 latter held regarding the necessity of a rigorous classifi- 

 cation, and which Buffon unjustly rejected without duly 

 understanding, were soon universally adopted. The 

 pupils of Linnaeus, moreover, carried the views of their 

 master to such extreme lengths that in their eyes the 

 nomenclature became the science itself. Those who re- 

 garded natural history from this point of view, could 

 obviously not appreciate the genius of Buffon : but yet 

 this great man invariably found defenders among the 



* Buffon was fully conscious of his own merits, and occasionally- 

 showed his self- appreciation in the most naive manner. He was 

 once asked how many truly great men the world had produced ; on 

 which he answered, " Five: Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, 

 and myself." 



Z 2 



