Greece, Cyprus, and Sardinia.
Buffon does not consider even the differences between sheep and goats to
be sufficiently characteristic to warrant their being classed as
different species.

"I shall never tire," he continues, "of repeating--seeing how important
the matter is--that we must not form our opinions concerning nature, nor
differentiate (differencier) her species, by a reference to minor
special characteristics. And, again, that systems, far from having
illustrated the history of animals, have, on the contrary, served rather
to obscure it ... leading, as they do, to the creation of arbitrary
species which nature knows nothing about; perpetually confounding real
and hypothetical existences; giving us false ideas as to the very
essence of species; uniting them and separating them without foundation
or knowledge, and often without our having seen the animal with which we
are dealing."[109]

_First and Second Views of Nature._

The twelfth volume begins with a preface, entitled "A First View of
Nature," from which I take the following:--

"What cannot Nature effect with such means at her disposal? She can do
all except either create matter or destroy it. These two extremes of
power the deity has reserved for himself only; creation and destruction
are the attributes of his omnipotence. To alter and undo, to develop and
to renew--these are powers which he has handed over to the charge of
Nature."[110]

The thirteenth volume opens with a second view of nature. After
describing what a man would have observed if he could have lived during
many continuous ages, Buffon goes on to say:--

"And as the number, sustenance, and balance of power among species is
constant, Nature would present ever the same appearance, and would be in
all times and under all climates absolutely and relatively the same, if
it were not her fashion to vary her individual forms as much as
possible. The type of each species is founded in a mould of which the
principal features have been cut in characters that are ineffaceable and
eternally permanent, but all the accessory touches vary; no one
individual is the exact facsimile of any other, and no species exists
without a large number of varieties. In the human race on which the
divine seal has been set most firmly, there are yet varieties of black
and white, large and small races, the Patagonian, Hottentot, European,
American, Negro, which, though all descended from a common father,
neverth