368 OUTLINES OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY 



are merely the effects of the natural habits of the animal, which 

 remains seated more willingly and for a longer time than in any 

 other posture : it is the same with these callosities of the apes as 

 with the double sole of skin which we carry beneath our feet ; 

 this sole is a natural callosity which our constant habit of walking 

 or resting upright renders more or less thick, or more or less 

 hard, according to the amount of friction to which the soles of 

 our feet are exposed." l 



It has been maintained that Buffon not only anticipated 

 Lamarck's views as to the influence of the environment and the 

 principle of use and disuse, but also those of Malthus and 

 Charles Darwin with regard to the importance of the struggle for 

 existence and the process of natural selection. That some such 

 ideas were present in his mind seems sufficiently clear from the 

 following passages. After speaking of the invasions of the Huns 

 and Goths and other peoples he continues : 



" These great events, these conspicuous epochs in the history of 

 the human race, are, however, only trifling vicissitudes in the 

 ordinary course of living nature ; it is in general always constant, 

 always the same ; its movement, always regular, turns on two 

 fixed pivots, the one the unlimited fecundity given to all species, 

 the other the innumerable obstacles which reduce the product of 

 this fecundity to a fixed quantity and at all times leave only 

 approximately the same number of individuals in each species." 2 



" The causes of destruction, of annihilation and sterility follow 

 immediately upon those of excessive multiplication ; and, inde- 

 pendently of contagion, the necessary consequence of too great 

 an accumulation of any living matter in one place, there are in 

 each species special causes of death and destruction, which we 

 shall indicate in the sequel and which alone suffice to compensate 

 for the excess of former generations." 3 



" The least perfect species, the most delicate, the most heavily 

 burdened, the least active, the least well armed, &c.. have already 

 disappeared or will disappear." 4 



Even if, on the strength of this last passage, however, we can 

 claim that Buffon had conceived the idea of the survival of the 



1 Op. cit., Tom. XIV, pp. 325, 326. 



2 Op. cit., Tom. VI, p. 248. 



3 Ibid., p. 251. 



4 I translate this passage, which I have not found in the original, from a quotation 

 given by Osborn in his interesting work " From the Greeks to Darwin " (Columbia 

 University Biological Series). The student should refer to this work for the history 

 of the theory of evolution. 



