had. It would
follow then that every family, whether animal or vegetable, had sprung
from a single stock, which after a succession of generations, had become
higher in the case of some of its descendants and lower in that of
others."

What inference could be more aptly drawn? But it was not one which
Buffon was going to put before the general public. He had said enough
for the discerning, and continues with what is intended to make the
conclusions they should draw even plainer to them, while it conceals
them still more carefully from the general reader.

"The naturalists who are so ready to establish families among animals
and vegetables, do not seem to have sufficiently considered the
consequences which should follow from their premises, for these would
limit direct creation to as small a number of forms as anyone might
think fit (reduisoient le produit immediat de la creation, a un nombre
d'individus aussi petit que l'on voudroit). _For if it were once shown
that we had right grounds for establishing these families; if the point
were once gained that among animals and vegetables there had been, I do
not say several species, but even a single one, which had been produced
in the course of direct descent from another species; if for example it
could be once shown that the ass was but a degeneration from the
horse--then there is no further limit to be set to the power of nature,
and we should not be wrong in supposing that with sufficient time she
could have evolved all other organized forms from one primordial type
(et l'on n'auroit pas tort de supposer, que d'un seul etre elle a su
tirer avec le temps tous les autres etres organises)._"

Buffon now felt that he had sailed as near the wind as was desirable.
His next sentence is as follows:--

"But no! It is certain _from revelation_ that all animals have alike
been favoured with the grace of an act of direct creation, and that the
first pair of every species issued full formed from the hands of the
Creator."[47]

This might be taken as _bona fide_, if it had been written by Bonnet,
but it is impossible to accept it from Buffon. It is only those who
judge him at second hand, or by isolated passages, who can hold that he
failed to see the consequences of his own premises. No one could have
seen more clearly, nor have said more lucidly, what should suffice to
show a sympathetic reader the conclusion he ought to come to. Even when
ironical, his irony is not the ill-na