112 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW- 



tion of his words ; but if he has observed the above 

 dul^, he is a successful or unsuccessful writer accord- 

 ing as he puzzles or fails to do so, and should be praised 

 or blamed accordingly. To condemn irony entirely, is 

 to say that there should be no people allowed to go 

 about the world but those to whom irony would be an 

 impertinence. 



Having already in some measure reassured us by the 

 faintness with which he disparages the senses of the 

 lower animals, Buffon continues, that these senses, 

 whether in man or in animals, may be greatly developed 

 by exercise : which we may suppose that a man of even 

 less humour than Buffon must know to be great non- 

 sense, unless it be taken to iuvolve that animals as well 

 as man can reflect and remember; it now, therefore, 

 becomes necessary to reassure the other side, and to 

 maintain that animals cannot reflect, and have no 

 memory " Je croisP he writes, " qu'on^eut demontrer que 

 les animaux Vbont aiusune connaissance du passe, aucwne 

 idee du temps, et que par consequent Us n'ont pas la 

 memoire." * 



I am ashamed of even arguing seriously a,y .inst the 

 supposition that this was Buffon's real opinion. The 

 very sweepingness of the assertion, the baldness, and I 

 might say brutality with which it is made, are convinc- 

 ing in their suggestiveneES of one who is laughing very 

 quietly in his sleeve. 



" Society," he continues, later on, " considered even 

 in the case of a single human family, involves the power 

 of reason; it involves feeling in such of the lower 

 * Tom. iy. p. 55. 



