196 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



les animaux ont egalement participe a la grace de la 

 creation, que les deux premiers de chaque espece et 

 de toutes les especes sont sortis tout formes des mains 

 du Createur, et I'on doit croire qu'ils etaient tels 

 alors, a peu pres, qu'ils nous sont aujourd'hui repre- 

 sentes par leurs descendants. 



It is this tour de face of opinion and this 

 change from earlier to later views, doubtless un- 

 der the influence of the Faculty of Theology at 

 the Sorbonne, which have led different writers to 

 present such widely different opinions as to Buf- 

 fon's share in the development of the evolution 

 idea. M. de Lanessan claims for Buffon the lead- 

 ing position as an evolutionist which is usually 

 accorded to Lamarck; other writers, such as Isi- 

 dore St. Hilaire and Haeckel, assign him a 

 much less important position; St. Hilaire shows 

 clearly that his opinions marked three periods. 

 Quatrefages hardly realizes the great influence 

 exerted by the writings of Buffon's middle pe- 

 riod, when his views as to the mutabihty of spe- 

 cies were most extreme. De Lanessan, his great- 

 est admirer, believes that he has anticipated not 

 only Lamarck in his conception of the action of 

 environment, but Darwin in the struggle for ex- 

 istence and survival of the fittest. There is no 

 doubt that in some passages Buffon questioned 

 not only the fixity, but even the reality of genera, 

 species, families, and other taxonomic divisions; 



