BUFF0N. 14!) 



dence. They sufficiently indicate his attachment to 

 the system of materialism, and some of his remarks 

 respecting religion and the Creator were of such a 

 nature as would greatly pain a sensitive mind. T<> 

 quote these remarks would do no good in the present 

 instance. He did not attempt to argue the want of 

 proof as to a divine power. He simply treated all 

 such matters with great contempt. Here again it is 

 probable that his excessive vanity led him into giving 

 utterance to language which he did not sincerely fed. 



Buffon's literary career began with a series of 

 translations. On his return to France from his tour 

 in Italy, he translated into French two English works 

 — the "Vegetable Statics" of Dr. Hales, and Newton's 

 " Treatise on Fluxions." These translations, and th< 

 prefaces which he attached to them, were the firsl 

 essays which, as it were, revealed him to himself, 

 for from this time forth he quitted not the path of 

 research into which his genius had led him. 1 1 

 wrote successively several papers upon geometry . 

 physics, and other subjects, which opened for him the 

 doors of the Academie des Sciences, into which bo<l\ 

 he was elected at the early age of twenty-six. In 

 the year 1739 he was appointed to an important 

 post in the Jardin des Plantes. The almost acci- 

 dental circumstances which led to the appointment 

 of Buff on to the position are deserving of mention 

 as affording another illustration of the truth of the 

 old axiom, that great events frequently spring from 

 trifling causes. 



The Jardin des Plantes answers to our Zoological 



