Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
Darwin, who was just such another practical and genial thinker, and who was distinctly a pupil of Buffon, though a most intelligent and original one if an organ after a reasonable amount of inspection appeared to be useless, it was to be called useless without more ado, and theories were to be ordered out of court if they were troublesome.
In this position, with a long neck of nine vertebræ, the only animal which has that number, it can reach the leaves on all sides of it; and, when not feeding, this is its natural position of repose. "Its remaining during its whole life in one tree, or suffering itself to fall from the branches, are romances of the early Spanish voyagers, to which M. Buffon gave too much credit.
The pre-eminent claim of Buffon to be considered as the father of the modern doctrine of evolution cannot be reasonably disputed, though he was doubtless led to his conclusions by the works of Descartes and Leibnitz, of both of whom he was an avowed and very warm admirer.
I know not whether, all things considered, the satisfaction of self-love which may be attached to academical titles, to his success in public and important meetings, ever completely rewarded Bailly for the heartaches he experienced in his literary career. A kind and tender intimacy had grown up between the great naturalist Buffon and the celebrated astronomer. An academical nomination broke it up.
The town said of him, "We have here in our midst a scientific man of the first order." Monsieur Gourdon merely repeated the ideas of Cuvier and Buffon, which might not have enabled him to pose as a scientist before the Soulanges world; but besides this he was making a collection of shells, and he possessed an herbarium, and he knew how to stuff birds.
Pleading that conversation with him was only a relaxation, he rather sought than avoided the idiom and slang of the mob, when these seemed expressive and facetious; while MONTBELLIARD threw every charm of animation over his delightful talk: but when he took his seat at the rival desk of Buffon, an immense interval separated them; he whose tongue dropped the honey and the music of the bee, handled a pen of iron; while Buffon's was the soft pencil of the philosophical painter of nature.
"Well-written works are the only ones which will go down to posterity," said Buffon in his speech; "quantity of knowledge, singularity of facts, even novelty in discoveries, are not certain guaranties of immortality; knowledge, facts, discoveries, are easily abstracted and transferred.
[Footnote 3: The passage as quoted by BUFFON from the Mémoires is as follows: "L'estomac avoit peu de diamètre; il en avoit moins que le colon, car son diamètre n'étoit que de quatorze pouces dans la partie la plus large; il avoit trois pieds et demi de longueur: l'orifice supérieur étoit
He had begged his friends to vote for his compatriot, Piron, author of the celebrated comedy Metromanie, at that time an old man and still poor. "I can wait," said Buffon.
Or the more flattering opinion of Dr. Romayne, supported by many nameless authorities, that Adam was of the Indian race; or the startling conjecture of Buffon, Helvetius, and Darwin, so highly honorable to mankind, that the whole human species is accidentally descended foam a remarkable family of monkeys! This last conjecture, I must own, came upon me very suddenly and very ungraciously.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking