BUFFO N FULLER QUOTATIONS. 147 



man, the quadrupeds are the ones whose nature is most 

 fixed and form most constant : birds and fishes vary 

 much more easily ; insects still more again than these, 

 and if we descend to plants, which certainly cannot be 

 excluded from animated nature, we shall be surprised 

 at the readiness with which species are seen to vary, 

 and at the ease with which they change their forms 

 and adopt new natures. 



" It is probable then that all the animals of the new 

 world are derived from congeners in the old, without 

 any deviation from the ordinary course of nature. 

 We may believe that having become separated in the 

 lapse of ages, by vast oceans and countries which 

 they could not traverse, they have gradually been 

 affected by, and derived impressions from, a climate 

 which has itself been modified so as to become a new 

 one through the operation of those same causes which 

 dissociated the individuals of the old and new world 

 from one another; thus in the course of time they 

 have grown smaller and changed their characters. 

 This, however, should not prevent our classifying them 

 as different species now, for the difference is no less 

 real whether it is caused by time, climate and soil, or 

 whether it dates from the creation. Nature I maintain 

 is in a state of continual flux and movement. It is 

 enough for man if he can grasp her as she is in his own 

 time, and throw but a glance or two upon the past and 

 future, so as to try and perceive what she may have been 

 informer times and what one day she may attain to."* 

 * Tom. ix. p. 127, 1761. 



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