ch. xvm The Evolution of Evolution Theories 287 



industry was untiring. He was about forty years old when 

 he began his great Natural History, and he worked till he 

 was fourscore. He lived a full life, the success of which 

 we can almost read in the strong confidence of his style. 

 ' Le^style, c'est l'homme m£me," he said ; or again, " Le 

 style est comme le bonheur ; il vient de la douceur de 1'ame." 

 Rousseau called him " La plus belle plume du siecle ; " 

 Mirabeau said, " Le plus grand homme de son siecle et de 

 bien d'autres ; " Voltaire first mocked and then praised him ; 

 and Diderot also eulogised. Buffon was first a man then 

 a zoologist, which seems to be the natural, though by no 

 means universally recognised, order of precedence, and we 

 have pleasant pictures of his handsome person, his magnifi- 

 cence, his diplomatic manners, and a splendid genius, which 

 he himself called " a supreme capacity for taking pains." 



Buffon's culture was very wide. He had an early 

 training in mathematics, and translated Newton's Fluxions ; 

 he seems to have been familiar with the chemistry and 

 physics of his time ; he was curious about everything. 

 Before Laplace, he elaborated an hypothesis as to the origin 

 of the solar system ; before Hutton and Lyell, he realised 

 that causes like those now at work had in the long past 

 sculptured the earth ; he had a special theory of heredii 

 not unlike Darwin's, and a by no means narrow theory 1^ 

 evolution, in which he recognised the struggle for existence 

 and the elimination of the unfit, the influence of isolation' 

 and of artificial selection, but especially the direct action of 

 food, climate, and other surrounding influences upon the 

 organism. It is generally allowed that there is in Buffon's 

 writings something of that indefiniteness which often charac- 

 terises pioneer works, and a lack of depth not unnatural in 

 a survey so broad, but they exhibit some remarkable illustra- 

 tions of prophetic genius, and a lively appreciation of 

 nature. 



It is probable that Buffon's treatment of zoology gained 

 freedom because he wrote in French, having shaken off the 

 shaekles which the prevalent custom of writing in Latin 

 imposed, and it cannot be doubted that his works did some- 

 thing to prepare the way for the future reception of the 



