EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON 201 
effect on Buffon, who maintained that, of the different 
forms of genesis, ‘spontaneous generation”’ is not 
only the most frequent and the most general, but the 
most ancient—namely, the primitive and the most 
universal.* 
Buffon by nature was unsystematic, and he pos- 
sessed little of the spirit or aim of the true investi- 
gator. He left no technical papers or memoirs, or 
what we would call contributions to science. In his 
history of animals he began with the domestic breeds, 
and then described those of most general, popular 
interest, those most known. He knew, as Male- 
sherbes claimed, little about the works even of Linné 
and other systematists, neither grasping their prin- 
ciples nor apparently caring to know their methods. 
His single positive addition to zodlogical science was 
generalizations on the geographical distribution of 
animals. He recognized that the animals of the 
tropical and southern portions of the old and new 
worlds were entirely unlike, while those of North 
America and northern Eurasia were in many cases the 
same. 
We will first bring together, as Flourens and also 
Butler have done, his scattered fragmentary views, or 
rather suggestions, on the fixity of species, and then 
present his thoughts on the mutability of species. 
* Tistoire naturelle, générale et particulicre. Ist edition, Im- 
primerie royale. Paris: 1749-1804, 44 vols. qto. Tome iv., p. 357. 
This is the best of all the editions of buffon, says Flourens, from 
whose Histoire des Travaux et des Idées de Buffon, ist edition (Paris, 
1844), we take some of the quotations and references, which, however, 
we have verified. We have also quoted some passages from Buffon 
translated by Butler in his ‘‘ Evolution, Old and New” (London, 
1879). 
