CHAPTER XIII 



THE EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON AND OF 

 GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE 



Of the French precursors of Lamarck there were 

 four— Duret (1609), De Maillet (1748), Robinet (1768), 

 and Buffon. The opinions of the first three could 

 hardly be taken seriously, as they were crude and 

 fantastic, though involving the idea of descent. The 

 suggestions and hypotheses of Buffon and of Erasmus 

 Darwin were of quite a different order, and deserve 

 careful consideration. 



George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was born 

 in 1707 at Montbard, Burgundy, in the same year 

 as Linn6. He died at Paris in 1788, at the age of 

 eighty-one years. He inherited a large property from 

 his father, who was a councillor of the parliament of 

 Burgundy. He studied at Dijon, and travelled abroad.. 

 Buffon was rich, but, greatly to his credit, devoted all 

 his life to the care of the Royal Garden and to writ- 

 ing his works, being a most prolific author. He was 

 not an observer, not even a closet naturalist. " I have 

 passed," he is reported to have said, " fifty years at 

 my desk." Appointed in 1739, when he was thirty- 

 two years old, Intendant of the Royal Garden, he 

 divided his time between his retreat at Montbard and 

 Paris, spending four months in Paris and the re- 



