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But this is feeble in comparison with Buffon, and did not appear till 1769, when Buffon had been writing on evolution for fully twenty years with the eyes of scientific Europe upon him.
He sought out our most celebrated <savants> and <literati>, and was particularly delighted with d'Alembert, Diderot, la Harpe, and M. the comte de Buffon. He appeared weary of the fetes which were given, and especially with the deadly-lively company of the two Duras. It was enough to kill you to have only one of them, and you may imagine the torture of being bored with both.
All that he has to do is to get himself accepted by them as an associate: he soon becomes their chief, in consequence of his superior intelligence. He does not, then, change the NATURAL CONDITION of these animals, as Buffon has said.
"At Saintes, not very far from here, in the sixteenth century, there lived one of the very greatest of Frenchmen, for he was not merely the inventor of glaze, he was the glorious precursor of Buffon and Cuvier besides; he was the first geologist, good, simple soul that he was.
Norman knew the animal as one of the most common in the "trade"; and in addition to what we have recorded, also related many adventures and stories current among the voyageurs, in which this creature figures in quite as fanciful a manner as he does in the works either of Olaus Magnus, or Count de Buffon. After remaining a day at their first camp on the lake, our voyageurs continued their journey.
Darwin has a habit, borrowed, perhaps, mutatis mutandis, from the framers of our collects, of every now and then adding the words "through natural selection," as though this squared everything, and descent with modification thus became his theory at once. This is not the case. Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck believed in natural selection to the full as much as any follower of Mr.
'In short, says Goldsmith probably translating Buffon, for we have not the latter at hand to ascertain 'every way offensive, a savage aspect, a frightful howl, an insupportable odour, a perverse disposition, fierce habits, he is hateful while living, and useless when dead.
Buffon laid down an excellent rule to obtain originality, when he advised the writer first to exhaust his own thoughts, before he attempted to consult other writers; and Gibbon, the most experienced reader of all our writers, offers the same important advice to an author.
The whole criticism he sent to Buffon anonymously, to assure him that the writer had no other motive than the interest he took in the discovery of truth and the perfection of a great work.
Buffon, perceiving at once the importance of some of Franklin's experiments, took steps to have the famous letter translated into French, and soon not only the savants, but members of the court and the king himself were intensely interested. Two scientists, De Lor and D'Alibard, undertook to test the truth of Franklin's suggestions as to pointed rods "drawing off lightning."
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