BUFFO N FULLER QUOTATIONS. 163 



no effect, inasmuch as "it refuses to breed under con- 

 finement, and cannot therefore transmit the badges of 

 its servitude to its descendants." * 



Here is an example of Buffon's covert manner, in 

 the way he maintains that descent with modification 

 may account not only for specific but for generic 

 differences. 



" But after having taken a rapid survey of the varie- 

 ties which indicate to us the alterations that each 

 species has undergone, there arises a broader and more 

 important question, how far, namely, species themselves 

 can change how far there has been an older degenera- 

 tion, immemorial from all antiquity, which has taken 

 place in every family, or, if the term is preferred, in all 

 the genera under which those species are comprehended 

 which neighbour one another without presenting points 

 of any very profound dissimilarity ? We have only a 

 few isolated species, such as man, which form at once 

 the species and the whole genus; the elephant, the 

 rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the giraffe form genera, 

 or simple species, which go down in a single line, with 

 no collateral branches. All other races appear to form 

 families, in which we may perceive a common source or 

 stock from which the different branches seem to have 

 sprung in greater or less numbers according as the in- 

 dividuals of each species are smaller and more fecund."t 



I can see no explanation of the introduction of this 



passage unless that it is intended to raise the question 



whether modification may be not only specific but 



generic, the point of the paragraph lying in the words 



* Tom. xiv. p. 333. f Ibid. p. 335, 1766. 



M 2 



