400 HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



details belonging to its subjects, nor does it possess those qualities of 

 undeviating precision and minute accuracy which scientific experts 

 would most highly value. Buffon was in fact not qualified by his 

 mental constitution for the production of a formally scientific synopsis. 

 He delighted in general views, wide theories, and pictorial descriptions. 

 In executing the first part of his undertaking, Buffon was fortunate in 

 obtaining the aid of a coadjutor who possessed in an eminent degree 

 precisely those qualities in which he himself was most deficient. The 

 first fifteen volumes of the "HistoireNaturelle? which treat of the theory 

 of the earth, animals in general, man, and viviparous quadrupeds, are 

 the joint work of Buffon and DAUBENTON (1716 1799). The latter 

 had been trained as a physician, and was an excellent anatomist, and 

 it was he who contributed to these volumes the descriptions of the 

 anatomy and external form of the animals, while the theoretical views, 

 description of general phenomena, and delineation of the habits of 

 animals, were the work of Buffon. In the subsequent volumes, the 

 -anatomical descriptions are meagre arid sometimes inaccurate, as in 

 them Buffon had to depend upon coadjutors less competent and less 

 conscientious than Daubenton. 



In the composition of his famous work Buffon took extreme pleasure, 

 sometimes passing twelve or fourteen consecutive hours at his writing- 

 table. He took great pains in correcting his writings by revision, until 

 every fault in expression had been detected and repaired. He wrote 

 and copied, read his chapters to his friends, and copied again until he 

 was entirely satisfied. It is said that of the manuscript of -the " Epochs 

 of Nature " he made no fewer than eleven transcripts. In point of 

 literary style Buffon was hardly surpassed by any of his contemporaries. 

 The splendour of language with which he invested his descriptions 

 gave an extraordinary impulse to the general study of natural history. 

 The science thus expounded, and divested of dry technical phraseo- 

 logy, became attractive to every one. Buffon eschewed any attempt at 

 classification, and even declined to trouble himself or his readers with 

 any accurate nomenclature for the things he described. His style was 

 captivating by its richness and harmony ; but at the present day, when 

 the tendency is to regard clearness of statement as the great and all- 

 sufficing quality of scientific exposition, many passages of the "His- 

 toire Natwelle" are liable to be considered pompous and inflated. It 

 was doubtless in allusion to the artificial grandeur of the style, that 

 when some one named the " Histoire Naturdle" Voltaire interposed 

 the words, "Pas si naturelle" There can, however, be no doubt that 

 Buffon's work diffused the taste for natural history, which, no longer 

 confined to the studies of the learned few, became the delight of all. 

 " Buffon will continue to excite a useful enthusiasm for the natural 

 sciences ; and the world will long be indebted to him for the pleasures 

 with which a young mind for the first time looks into nature, and for 

 the consolations with which a soul, weary of the storms of life, reposes 



