eless exhibit no very brotherly resemblance to one another."[111]

On an earlier page there is a passage which I may quote as showing
Buffon to have not been without some--though very imperfect--perception
of the fact which evidently made so deep an impression upon his
successor, Dr. Erasmus Darwin. I refer to that continuity of life in
successive generations, and that oneness of personality between parents
and offspring, which is the only key that will make the phenomena of
heredity intelligible.

"Man," he says, "and especially educated man, is no longer a single
individual, but represents no small part of the human race in its
entirety. He was the first to receive from his fathers the knowledge
which their own ancestors had handed down to them. These, having
discovered the divine art of fixing their thoughts so that they can
transmit them to their posterity, become, as it were, one and the same
people with their descendants (_se sont, pour ainsi dire, identifies
avec leur neveux_); while our descendants will in their turn be one and
the same people with ourselves (_s'identifieront avec nous_). This
reunion in a single person of the experience of many ages, throws back
the boundaries of man's existence to the utmost limits of the past; he
is no longer a single individual, limited as other beings are to the
sensations and experiences of to-day. In place of the individual we have
to deal, as it were, with the whole species."[112]

"Differences in exterior are nothing in comparison with those in
interior parts. These last must be regarded as the causes, while the
others are but the effects. The interior parts of living beings are the
foundation of the plan of their design; this is their essential form,
their real shape, their exterior is only the surface, or rather the
drapery in which their true figure is enveloped. How often does not the
study of comparative anatomy show us that two exteriors which differ
widely conceal interiors absolutely like each other, and, on the
contrary, that the smallest internal difference is accompanied by the
most marked differences of outward appearance, changing as it does even
the natural habits, faculties and attributes of the animal?"[113]

_Apes and Monkeys._

The fourteenth volume is devoted to apes and monkeys, and to the chapter
with which the volumes on quadrupeds are brought to a conclusion--a
chapter for which perhaps the most important position in the whole work
is thus