BUFFON-FULLER QUOTATIONS. 125 



mankind, like those of animals, should remain con- 

 stunt. 



" Nevertheless, this fixed state, this constant number, 

 is not absolute, all physical and moral causes, and all the 

 results which spring from them, balance themselves, as 

 though, upon a see-saw, which has a certain play, but 

 never so much as that equilibrium should be altogether 

 lost. As everything in the universe is in movement, 

 and as all the forces which are contained in matter act 

 one against the other and counterbalance one another, 

 all is done by a kind of oscillation ; of which the mean 

 points are those to which we refer as being the ordinary 

 course of nature, while the extremes are the periods 

 which deviate from that course most widely. And, as a 

 matter of fact, with animals as much as with plants, a 

 time of unusual fecundity is commonly followed by one 

 of sterility ; abundance and dearth come alternately, and 

 often at such short intervals that we may foretell the 

 production of a coming year by our knowledge of the 

 past one. Our apples, pears, oaks, beeches, and the 

 greater number of our fruit and forest trees, bear freely 

 but about one year in two. Caterpillars, cockchafers, 

 woodlice, which in one year may multiply with great 

 abundance, will appear but sparsely in the next. What 

 indeed would become of all the good things of the 

 earth, what would become of the useful animals, and 

 indeed of man himself, if each individual in these years 

 of excess was to leave its quotum of offspring ? This, 

 however, does not happen, for destruction and sterility 

 follow closely upon excessive fecundity, and, indepen- 

 dently of the contagion which follows inevitably upon 



