BUFFON 141 



creatures." He believed that species have altered, due 

 to changes in the environment in past ages of the world ; 

 and he hinted that there may have been a common 

 ancestor of the ass and horse, and of the ape and man. 



I don't object, not I, to know 

 My sires were monkeys, if 'twas so, 

 I touch my ear's collusive tip, 

 And own the poor relationship. 



/. R. Lowell. 



Buffon was an evolutionist, and the most " suggestive 

 naturalist of the eighteenth century." During the same 

 century there was great enthusiasm for natural history, 

 as the following names, among others, bear evidence 

 Kcesel, De Geer, Schaffer, Ke'aumur, and Bonnet. 



Buffon anticipated many important theories, such as 

 " the struggle for existence," " artificial and natural 

 selection," " geographical isolation," " descent," and the 

 action of the environment in producing structural changes 

 which were preserved by heredity. Although faulty in 

 many of his ideas, Buffon helped to pave the way to the 

 modern theory of evolution. 



Of his foibles, it may be mentioned that he was person- 

 ally vain turbine raptus ingenii ; so were the most emi- 

 nent writers, Voltaire and Rousseau, of the age of Louis XV. 

 He was fond of jewellery and gold-laced clothes, and 

 in his you rig days he was a dandy, as far as dress was 

 concerned. He said of himself : "I know but five great 

 geniuses, Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and 



