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But if you flatter the exterior man with your hand, the Homo duplex, the interior man, to use an expression of Buffon, immediately rouses himself and rends you with his keen points of contact. This description of a special class of human creatures, which we hope you will not run up against during your earthly journey, presents a picture of what your wife may be to you.
And nowhere are they found in the books of the naturalists. Though America be discovered, the Cathays of the deep are unknown. And whoso crosses the Pacific might have read lessons to Buffon. The sea-serpent is not a fable; and in the sea, that snake is but a garden worm. There are more wonders than the wonders rejected, and more sights unrevealed than you or I ever ever dreamt of.
Darwin, on the other hand, definitely set before himself the problem of the origin of species, which the majority of naturalists, in spite of Lamarck and his predecessor Buffon, regarded as permanent and essentially immutable types established by the Creator at the beginning of the world.
Buffon was compelled to retract hypotheses which he put forward about the formation of the earth in his Natural History , and to state that he believed implicitly in the Bible account of Creation. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Laplace worked out the mechanics of the universe, on the nebular hypothesis.
During their travels all over Europe they were examined by many prominent physiologists, psychologists, and naturalists; Pope and several minor poets have celebrated their existence in verse; Buffon speaks of them in his "Natural History," and all the works on teratology for a century or more have mentioned them.
Some naturalist of the "Buffon" school has stated that neither wolf, fox, hyena, nor jackal, will eat the carcass of a lion, that their fear of the royal despot continues even after his death. The field-cornet and his family had proof of the want of truth in this assertion.
A distinguished teacher and president of a college spoke of it as the power of making efforts. John Foster held it to be the power of lighting one's own fire. Buffon said of genius "it is patience." Newton's was unquestionably a mind of the very highest order, and yet, when asked by what means he had worked out his extraordinary discoveries, he modestly answered, "By always thinking unto them."
This is all very naive, and accords perfectly with the introductory paragraphs of the "Origin of Species;" it gives us the same picture of a solitary thinker, a poor, lonely, friendless student of nature, who had never so much as heard of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, or Lamarck. Unfortunately, however, we cannot forget the description of the influences which, according to Mr.
"He is a nice fellow, very pleasant, very amiable, a great philosopher, a mighty arguer, but a maker of perpetual digressions. Yesterday he made quite five and twenty between nine o'clock and one, during which time he remained in my room. O, how much more lucid is Buffon than all those gentry!" The magistrate's mind understood and appreciated the great naturalist's genius.
Notwithstanding the improved state to which BUFFON had brought this establishment, yet, through the united care of the several scientific men who have since had the direction of it, the constant attention bestowed on it by the government, and even by the conquests of the French armies, its riches have been so much increased, that its collection of natural history may at this day be considered as the finest in being.
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