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Updated: May 10, 2025
The first fifteen volumes of this great work, published between the years 1749 and 1767, treated of the theory of the earth, the nature of animals, and the history of man and viviparous quadrupeds; and was the joint work of Buffon and Daubenton, a physician of Buffon's native village.
What curve did they describe in leaving it, so as never to return? Can you suppose that gravitation could cause the same body to describe a spiral and an ellipse? In the same exact spirit, Turgot brings known facts to bear on Buffon's theory of the arrangement of the terrestrial and marine divisions of the earth's surface.
For these reasons, Paine's reception in Paris was cordial; visits and invitations poured in upon him; he dined with Malesherbes; M. Le Roy took him to Buffon's, where he saw some interesting experiments on inflammable air; the Abbe Morellet exerted himself to get the model of his bridge, which had been stopped at the custom-house, safely to Paris.
Darwin commends in the note on the second page of the historical sketch, as giving "an excellent history of opinion" upon the subject of evolution, and a full account of Buffon's conclusions upon the same subject. This at least is what I supposed Mr. Darwin to mean. Darwin is a more than commonly puzzling writer.
Buffon's conduct and conversation were marked throughout by a certain coarseness and vulgarity that constantly appear in his writings. He was foppish and trifling, and affected religion though at heart a disbeliever. The chief value of Buffon's work lies in the fact that it first brought the subject of natural history into popular literature.
This, no doubt, is a flaw in Buffon's immortal work, but it is one which Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck easily corrected; nor can we doubt that Buffon would have readily accepted their amendment if it had been suggested to him. Buffon did infinitely more in the way of discovering and establishing the theory of descent with modification than any one has ever done either before or since.
I believe that if the reader will bear in mind the twofold, serious and ironical, character of Buffon's work he will understand it, and feel an admiration for it which will grow continually greater and greater the more he studies it, otherwise he will miss the whole point. But I have observed that there is an unconscious irony in most disclaimers of this nature.
It was Goldsmith's intention originally to make a translation of Pliny, with a popular commentary; but the appearance of Buffon's work induced him to change his plan and make use of that author for a guide and model. Cumberland, speaking of this work, observes: "Distress drove Goldsmith upon undertakings neither congenial with his studies nor worthy of his talents.
Professor Ansted has only mentioned one of the family the Great Skua, Stercorarius catarrhactes, in his list, which also may occasionally occur, as may Buffon's Skua, Stercorarius parasiticus; but neither of these seem to me so likely to occur as the two first-mentioned, not being by any means so common on the English side of the Channel.
All over Europe, the wise took Buffon's hint for what he meant it; and the unwise blandly passed it by as a mere passing little foolish vagary of that great ironical writer and thinker. Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of his grandson, was no fool; on the contrary, he was the most far-sighted man of his day in England; he saw at once what Buffon was driving at; and he worked out 'Mr.
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