uffon as one of the great authorities upon their
side."

Then follow the quotations upon which M. Geoffroy relies--to which I
will return presently--after which the conclusion runs thus:--

"The dates, however, of the several passages in question are sufficient
to explain the differences in their tenor, in a manner worthy of Buffon.
Where are the passages in which Buffon affirms the immutability of
species? At the beginning of his work. His first volume on animals[55]
is dated 1753. The two following are those in which Buffon still shares
the views of Linnaeus; they are dated 1755 and 1756. Of what date are
those in which Buffon declares for variability? From 1761 to 1766. And
those in which, after having admitted variability and declared in favour
of it, he proceeds to limit it? From 1765 to 1778.

"The inference is sufficiently simple. Buffon does but correct himself.
He does not fluctuate. He goes once for all from one opinion to the
other, from what he accepted at starting on the authority of another to
what he recognized as true after twenty years of research. If while
trying to set himself free from the prevailing notions, he in the first
instance went, like all other innovators, somewhat to the opposite
extreme, he essays as soon as may be to retrace his steps in some
measure, and thenceforward to remain unchanged.

"Let the reader cast his eye over the general table of contents wherein
Buffon, at the end of his 'Natural History,' gives a _resume_ of all of
it that he is anxious to preserve. He passes over alike the passages in
which he affirms and those in which he unreservedly denies the
immutability of species, and indicates only the doctrine of the
permanence of essential features and the variability of details (toutes
les touches accessoires); he repeats this eleven years later in his
'Epoques de la Nature'" (published 1778).[56]

But I think I can show that the passages which M. Geoffroy brings
forward, to prove that Buffon was in the first instance a supporter of
invariability, do not bear him out in the deduction he has endeavoured
to draw from them.

"What author," he asks, "has ever pronounced more decidedly than Buffon
in favour of the invariability of species? Where can we find a more
decided expression of opinion than the following?

"'The different species of animals are separated from one another by a
space which Nature cannot overstep.'"

On turning, however, to Buffon himself, I find the