114 SPECIES. 



Such has been, for a long time, the theory of the origin of 

 species which we have held, and which we maintained in the 

 first edition of this book. In fact, the solution which we now 

 offer differs considerably from that which we then gave. But 

 there is evolution rather than contradiction in going from one 

 to the other. The differences which separate mankind are not 

 lessened, and have not diminished in value in our eyes : we 

 merely explain these differences in another way. It cannot be 

 called contradiction, or even inconsistency, to change one's 

 manner of viewing things with the times ; to regard things 

 otherwise which, as we said before, have no absolute basis ; or 

 to change in five years one's opinion concerning the origin 

 of the living beings on the surface of the globe. 



In Buffon' s last opinion* species was not that definite entity 

 in which Cuvier believed, commencing at a given geological 

 moment, in order to terminate at another. Buffon says, in his 

 latest works, that the idea of species can only be seized upon 

 by man at "this or that instant of his age/'f an ^ that it 

 is merely the expression of the ambient medium. Let this 

 remain as before, it will not change ; but when the conditions 

 of the medium become modified, species will change. We thus 

 arrive at this definition : 



* [We are almost tempted, in all kindness, to refer our author to the follow- 

 ing remarks in the Reliques of Father Prout, p. 264. " I have been at some 

 pains to acquire a comprehensive notion of the Count de Buffon' s system, 

 and, aided by an old Jesuit, I have succeeded in condensing the volu- 

 minous dissertation into a few lines, for the use of those who are dissatisfied 

 with the Mosaic statement : 



1. In the beginning was the sun, from which a splinter was shot off by 

 chance, and that fragment was our globe. 



2. And the globe had for its nucleus melted glass, with an envelope of hot 

 water. 



3. And it began to twirl round, and became somewhat flattened at the poles. 



4. Now, when the water grew cool, insects began to appear, and shell-fisli. 



5. And from the accumulation of shells, particularly oysters (see vol. i, p. 

 14, 4to, 2nd ed.), the earth was gradually formed, with ridges of mountains, 

 on the principle of the Monte Testacio at the gate of Some. 



6. But the melted glass kept warm for a long time, and the arctic climate 

 was as hot in those days as the tropics now are, witness a frozen rhinoceros 

 found in Siberia." Let the leaven work, although a mere joke to M. Pouchet's 

 reality. EDITOR.] 



f Histoire Naturelle, vol.ix,p. 127, 1761. ^tienne Geoffroy (Comptes Rendus, 

 vol. iii, p. 29) says the same thing " as regards the actual constitution of the 

 globe ; each race is a species sui generis, a form or combination of its own 

 in nature." 



