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It is the only way of fixing certain points in the immensity of space, and of placing a certain number of memorial-stones on the endless road of time." "This is what I perceive with my mind's eye," Buffon would say, "thus forming a chain which, from the summit of Time's ladder, descends right down to us."
About this time we find in the writings of Buffon, the French naturalist, many indications of an idea approaching our modern conceptions of evolution. He felt sure the pig could not have been a special creation, because he had four toes, two of which, with all their bones and their hoofs, are quite useless to him.
What Buffon said is a big blasphemy: genius is not long-continued patience. Still, there is some truth in the statement, and more than people think, especially as regards our own day. Art! art! art! bitter deception! phantom that glows with light, only to lead one on to destruction... Again I am growing so peevish about my writing.
Buffon, in his Discourse on Style, insisting on the unity of design, arrangement, and execution, which are the stamps of true classical works, said: "Every subject is one, and however vast it is, it can be comprised in a single treatise.
How happens it, for example, that the cosmic mass which gave birth to our solar system was divided into several planetary bodies instead of remaining a single mass? Were the planets struck from the sun by the chance impact of comets, as Buffon has suggested? or thrown out by explosive volcanic action, in accordance with the theory of Dr. Darwin? or do they owe their origin to some unknown law?
Then followed the 'History of Minerals' in five volumes, and seven volumes of 'Supplements, the last one of which was published the year after Buffon's death. One can hardly admire the personal character of Buffon. He was vain and superficial, and given to extravagant speculations. He is reported to have said, "I know but five great geniuses Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself."
So Buffon did not venture to say outright that he thought all animals and plants were descended one from the other with slight modifications; that would have been wicked, and the Sorbonne would have proved its wickedness to him in a most conclusive fashion by promptly getting him imprisoned or silenced. It is so easy to confute your opponent when you are a hundred strong and he is one weak unit.
Nevertheless, all must admit that they are quite as capable of describing their particular breeds of animals as other nations; and, in fact, we might go farther, and say that they are much more competent to the task than English writers, judging from their extensive knowledge in comparative anatomy, and their long array of celebrated writers on natural history the Cuviers, Buffon, &c.
Whatever concession to the opinion of Buffon Bonnet may have been inclined to make in 1769, in 1764, when he published his "Contemplation de la Nature," and in 1762 when his "Considerations sur les Corps Organes" appeared, he cannot be considered to have been a supporter of evolution.
Buffon was still alive, and the great sailors were every day enriching with their discoveries the Jardin du Roi; the physicists and the chemists, in the wake of Lavoisier, were giving to science a language intelligible to common folks; the jurisconsults were attempting to reform the rigors of criminal legislation at the same time with the abuses they had entailed, and Beaumarchais was bringing on the boards his Manage de Figaro.
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