BUFFON— FULLER QUOTATIONS. 1 23 



sibility of discovering the parent-stock of our wheat 

 and of others of our domesticated plants,* and on the 

 tendency of both plants and animals to resume feral 

 characteristics on becoming wild again after domestica- 

 tion-t 



Tim Hare — Geometrieal Ratio 0/ Increase, 



We have already seen that it was Buffon's pleasure 

 to consider the hare a rabbit for the time being, and 

 to make it the text for a discourse upon fecundity. 

 I have no doubt he enjoyed doing this, and would have 

 found comparatively little pleasure in preaching the 

 same discourse upon the rabbit. Speaking of the way 

 in which even the races of mankind have struggled and 

 crowded each other out, Buffon says : — 



"These great events — these well-marked epochs in 

 the history of the human race — are yet but ripples, as 

 it were, on the current of life ; which, as a general rule, 

 flows onward evenly and in equal volume. 



" It may be said that the movement of Nature turns 

 upon two immovable pivots — one, the illimitable fecun- 

 dity which she has given to all species ; the other, the 

 innumerable difficulties which reduce the results of 

 that fecundity, and leave throughout time nearly the 

 same quantity of individuals in every species.J .... 



• Tom. V. p. 195. t Tom. v. pp. 196, *97. 



t This passage would seem to be the one which has suggested the 

 following to the author of ' The Vestiges of Creation ' :— 



" He [the Deity] has endowed the families which enjoy His bounty 

 with an almost infinite fecundity, .... but the limitation of the 

 results of this fecundity .... is accomplished in a befitting manner 

 by His ordaining that certain other animals shall have endowments 

 sure so to act as to bring the rest of animated beings to a proper 

 balance " (p. 317, ed. 1853). 



