130 EVOLUTIONISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



in origin, arising by hybridity, and losing their 

 perfection of type. He elsewhere suggested that 

 degeneration was the result of the influences of 

 climate or environment. 



In the last and thoroughly revised edition of the 

 Systema Naturce, which appeared in 1766, we no 

 longer find this fundamental proposition of his 

 earlier works, nullce specie? nova. This change of 

 view was, however, of a very mild character in com- 

 parison with the very radical views as to the muta- 

 bility of species which Buffon was expressing about 

 the same time. The influence of Linnaeus was 

 vast; far greater than that of Buffon among his 

 contemporaries. The two men were compared to 

 the disadvantage of the latter, and Buffon has been 

 charged with jealousy of the great Swede. The 

 reason why the works of Linnaeus were more influ- 

 ential is obvious ; his system was adapted to the 

 general state of knowledge in his day, while the 

 ideas of Buffon were in advance of his day, and 

 incapable of proof in the existing stage of knowledge. 



GEORGE Louis LECLERC BUFFON (1707-1788) 

 may be called the naturalist founder of the modern 

 applied form of the Evolution theory. It is true 

 that his conception of the range of Evolution 

 changed during three periods of his life ; that it is 

 difficult to gather from his conflicting statements 

 exactly what his opinions were, yet he laid the basis 

 of modern Evolution in Zoology and Botany. We 

 claim this for him, because he first pointed out, on 



