IRONICAL CHARACTER OF BUFFON'S WORK. 8g 



whether this constancy to a single plan of structure 

 which we may follow from man to the quadrupeds, from 

 the quadrupeds to the cetacea, from the cetacea to birds, 

 from birds to reptiles, from reptiles to fishes — in which 

 all such essential parts as heart, intestines, spine, are 

 invariably found — whether, I say, this does not seem to 

 indicate that the Creator when He made them would use 

 but a single main idea, though at the same time varying 

 it in every conceivable way, so that man might admire 

 equally the magnificence of the execution and the sim- 

 plicity of the design.* 



" If we regard the matter thus, not only the ass and 

 the horse, hut even man himself, the apes, the quadrupeds, 

 and all animals ndght he regarded hut as forndng members 

 of one and the same family. But are we to conclude 

 that within this vast family which the Creator has called 

 into existence out of nothing, there are other and 

 smaller families, projected as it were by Nature, and 

 brought forth by her in the natural course of events 

 and after a long time, of which some contain but two 

 members, as the ass and the horse, others many mem- 

 bers, as the weasel, martin, stoat, ferret, &c., and that 

 on the same principle there are families of vegetables, 

 containing ten, twenty, or thirty plants, as the case 

 may be? K such families had any real existence 

 they could have been formed only by crossing, by the 

 accumulation of successive variations (variation succes- 

 sive), and by degeneration from an original type ; but 

 if we once admit that there are families of plants and 

 animals, so that the ass may be of the family of the 

 • Tom, iv. p. 38J, 1753. 



