388 BUFFON 



of cultivated people, but the only science which counted 

 so far was the science of Descartes and Newton. Reaumur, 

 and still more emphatically BufFon, showed that the 

 problems of life are not less interesting nor less im- 

 portant than the mechanics of the universe. Buffon's 

 animated descriptions and bold speculations did much 

 to prepare men's minds for Cuvier and Darwin, for 

 geology, palaeontology, and the theory of descent.^ 



Buffon was far in advance of his own generation in 

 teaching that all geological phenomena can be explained 

 by the long-continued action of ordinary causes. Cuvier's 

 Revolutions de la surface du Globe was written expressly 

 to refute this doctrine. 



It is alnlost unnecessary to say that the Histoire 

 Naturelle swarms with errors. All comprehensive 

 works in natural science are found to do so, when they 

 come to be examined by the light of a later age. Buffon 

 is only to be blamed for presumptuous and wanton 

 mistakes, of which there is no lack. 



It is now more than a century since Buffon laid down 

 his pen for ever, and we are able in some degree to 

 estimate the value of his labours. He left behind him 

 thirty-six volumes ^ of the Histoire Naturelle, enriched 

 by a profusion of plates, as w^ell as by the notes of skilful 

 collaborators. The work formed a vast, though most 

 incomplete encyclopaedia of zoology, at once fuller and 

 more entertaining than any which the world had ever 

 seen. At Buffon's death the mammals, birds, and 

 minerals had been dealt with, the reptiles had been 

 begun, and preparations had been made for the volumes 

 on fishes. The original plan extended to the whole 



1 Erasmus Darwin was among those who drew ideas from the Histoire 

 Naturelle, whether to the gain of science or not may be a question. 



*Not counting the two volumes on Reptiles, by Lacepede, the second of 

 which appeared just after Buffon's death. 



