THE WORLD INTO WHICH DARWIN WAS BORN 9 



course of direct descent from another unlike it (for 

 example, the ass from the horse), then, Buffon observed, 

 there was no further limit to be set to her powers in 

 this respect, and we might reasonably conclude that 

 from a single primordial being she has gradually been 

 able in the course of time to develop the whole con- 

 tinuous gamut of existing animal and vegetable life. 

 To be sure, Buffon always saves himself from censure 

 by an obvious afterthought ' But no ; it is certain 

 from revelation that every species was directly created 

 by a separate fiat.' This half-hearted and somewhat 

 subrisive denial, however, must be taken merely as a 

 concession to the Sorbonne and to the fashionable 

 exegesis of his own day; and, even so, the Sorboune 

 was too much in the end for the philosophic thinker. 

 He had once in his life at least to make his submission 

 and demand pardon from the offended orthodoxy of the 

 Paris faculty. 



The wave of thought and feeling, thus apologetically 

 and tentatively stirred on the unruffled pond of 

 eighteenth century opinion by the startling plop of 

 Buffon's little smooth-cut pebble, soon widened out 

 on every side in concentric circles, and affected with its 

 wash the entire world of biological science in every 

 country. Before the close of the eighteenth century 

 speculation as to the origin of species was rife in 

 all quarters of Europe. In France itself, Geoffroy 

 St. Hilaire, constitutionally cautious and undecided, 

 but wide of view and free from prejudice, came slowly 

 to the conclusion, in 1795, that all species are really 

 derived by modification from one or more primitive 

 types. In Germany, in the very same year, Goethe, 



