t every part of every animal or plant was specially
designed with a view to the wants of the animal or plant itself once and
for ever throughout all time. The dog with his great variety of breeds
gives an opportunity for an article on the formation of breeds and
sub-breeds by man's artificial selection. The cat is not honoured with
any philosophical reflections, and comes in for nothing but abuse. The
hare suggests the rabbit, and the rabbit is a rapid breeder, although
the hare is an unusually slow one; but this is near enough, so the hare
shall serve us for the theme of a discourse on the geometrical ratio of
increase and the balance of power which may be observed in nature. When
we come to the carnivora, additional reflections follow upon the
necessity for death, and even for violent death; this leads to the
question whether the creatures that are killed suffer pain; here, then,
will be the proper place for considering the sensations of animals
generally.

Perhaps the most pregnant passage concerning evolution is to be found in
the preface to the ass, which is so near the beginning of the work as to
be only the second animal of which Buffon treats after having described
man himself. It points strongly in the direction of his having believed
all animal forms to have been descended from one single common ancestral
type. Buffon did not probably choose to take his very first opportunity
in order to insist upon matter that should point in this direction; but
the considerations were too important to be deferred long, and are
accordingly put forward under cover of the ass, his second animal.

When we consider the force with which Buffon's conclusion is led up to;
the obviousness of the conclusion itself when the premises are once
admitted; the impossibility that such a conclusion should be again lost
sight of if the reasonableness of its being drawn had been once
admitted; the position in his scheme which is assigned to it by its
propounder; the persistency with which he demonstrates during forty
years thereafter that the premises, which he has declared should
establish the conclusion in question, are indisputable;--when we
consider, too, that we are dealing with a man of unquestionable genius,
and that the times and circumstances of his life were such as would go
far to explain reserve and irony--is it, I would ask, reasonable to
suppose that Buffon did not, in his own mind, and from the first, draw
the inference to which