BUFFON 375 



where to place the edentates, moles, shrews, or bats. 

 He has only two suggestions of his own to propose, 

 both of them unfortunate. He puts together the por- 

 cupine and the hedgehog, for no better reason than that 

 both are defended by prickles, and he unites the otter, 

 beaver, desman, and seal into a new amphibious family. 

 When he comes to the Quadrumana, we find him work- 

 ing at system just like any of the naturalists whom he 

 had derided. 



Sainte Beuve said very truly that Bufibn was " un 

 grand esprit ^ducable." He was ever learning, all 

 through his fifty years of writing and his eighty years of 

 living, and one can only blame him for not having had 

 the candour to admit his early mistakes, or the grace to 

 thank those who had helped him to correct them. 



THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



Buffon had not proceeded very far with his descrip- 

 tions of quadrupeds before the ass and its resemblance 

 to the horse raised some important questions in his mind. 

 We might feel disposed to call the ass an inferior horse, 

 like a horse in general structure, but with differences 

 which are perhaps due to climate or food. Horses are 

 more variable in colour than asses — an indication, he 

 remarks, that their domestication is of more ancient 

 date.^ Wild horses may exhibit some of the characters 

 of the ass, such as the low stature, the greyish brown 

 colour, the tail tufted at the end, and the black stripe 

 across the shoulders. Are the two animals allied in 

 blood ? Is it proper to make them, as Linnseus does, 

 two species of the same genus, or have they not been 



1 Buffon neglects the possibility that more paini may hav« bera Ukw with 

 the selection of horses for breeding. 



