SUPPOSED FLUCTUATIONS OF OPINION. 97 



CHAPTER X. 



SUPPOSED FLUCTUATIONS OF OPINION CAUSES OR MEANS 

 OF THE TRANSFORMATION OF SPECIES. 



ENOUGH, perhaps, has been already said to disabuse the 

 reader's mind of the common misconception of Buffon, 

 namely, that he was more or less of an elegant trifler 

 with science, who cared rather about the language in 

 which his ideas were clothed than about the ideas 

 themselves, and that he did not hold the same opinions 

 for long together; but the accusation of instability 

 has been made in such high quarters that it is neces- 

 sary to refute it still more completely 



Mr. Darwin, for example, in his " Historical Sketch 

 of the Recent Progress of Opinion on the Origin of 

 Species " prefixed to all the later editions of his own 

 < Origin of Species,' says of Buffon that he " was the 

 first author who, in modern times, has treated" the 

 origin of species " in a scientific spirit. But," he con- 

 tinues, " as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different 

 periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means 

 of the transformation of species, I need not here enter 

 on details." * 



Mr. Darwin seems to have followed the one half of 

 Isidore Geoffrey St. Hilaire's " full account of Buffon's 



' Origin of Species,' p. xiii. ed. 1876. 



I* 



