IRONICAL CHARACTER OF BUFFON'S WORK. 83 



decided opponent of the doctrine that rudimentary and 

 therefore useless organs were designed by a Creator in 

 order to serve some useful end throughout all time to 

 the creature in which they are found. 



He was not, surely, to hide the magnificent concep- 

 tions which he had been the first to grasp, from those 

 who were worthy to receive them ; on the other hand 

 he would not tell the uninstructed what they would 

 interpret as a license to do whatever they pleased, inas- 

 much as there was no God. What he did was to 

 point so irresistibly in the right direction, that a feader 

 of any intelligence should be in no doubt as to the road 

 he ought to take, and then to contradict himself so 

 flatly as to reassure those who would be shocked by a 

 truth for which they were not yet ready. If I am 

 right in the view which I have taken of Bufibn's work, 

 it is not easy to see how he could have formed a finer 

 scheme, nor have carried it out more finely. 



I should, however, warn the reader to be on his 

 guard against accepting my view too hastily. So far as 

 I know I stand alone in taking it. Neither Dr. Darwin 

 nor Flourens, nor Isidore Geoffroy, nor Mr. Charles 

 Darwin see any subrisive humour in Buffon's pages; 

 but it must be remembered that Flourens was a strong 

 opponent of mutability, and probably paid but little 

 heed to what Bufifon said on this question; Isidore 

 Geofiroy is not a safe guide, as will appear presently ; 

 Mr. Charles Darwin seems to have adopted the one 

 haK of Isidore Geoffrey's conclusions without verifying 

 either ; and Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who has no small share 

 of a very pleasant conscious humour, yet sometimes 



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