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THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF 
GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE 
OF the French precursors of Lamarck there were 
four—Duret (1609), De Maillet (1748), Robinet (1768), 
and Buffon. The opinions of the first three could 
hardly be taken seriously, as they were crude and 
fantastic, though involving the idea of descent. The 
suggestions and hypotheses of Buffon and of Erasmus 
Darwin were of quite a different order, and deserve 
careful consideration. 
George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was born 
in 1707 at Montbard, Burgundy, in the same year 
as lLinné. .Herdied).at Paris in 1788, at the age of 
eighty-one years. He inherited a large property from 
his father, who was a councillor of the parliament of 
Burgundy. He studied at Dijon, and travelled abroad. 
Buffon was rich, but, greatly to his credit, devoted all 
his life to the care of the Royal Garden and to writ- 
ing his works, being a most prolific author. He was 
not an observer, not even a closet naturalist. ‘I have 
passed,” he is reported to have said, “ fifty years at 
my desk.”” Appointed in 1739, when he was thirty- 
two years old, Intendant of the Royal Garden, he 
divided his time between his retreat at Montbard and 
Paris, spending four months in Paris and the re- 
