A science becomes part of the general stock of knowledge only after it
has entered into the literature of a people. The bare skeleton of facts
must be clothed with the flesh and blood of imagination, through the
humanizing influence of literary expression, before it can be
assimilated by the average intellectual being. The scientific
investigator is rarely endowed with the gift of weaving the facts into a
story that will charm, and the man of letters is too often devoid of
that patience which is the chief virtue of the scientist. These gifts of
the gods are bestowed upon mankind under the guiding genius of the
division of labor. The name of Buffon will always be associated with
natural history, though in the man himself the spirit of science was
conspicuously absent. In this respect he was in marked contrast with his
contemporary Linnæus, whose intellect and labor laid the foundations of
much of the scientific knowledge of to-day.
[ILLUSTRATION: BUFFON]
George Louis le Clerc Buffon was born on the 7th of September, 1707, at
Montbar, in Burgundy. His father, Benjamin le Clerc, who was possessed
of a fortune, appears to have bestowed great care and liberality on the
education of his son. While a youth Buffon made the acquaintance of a
young English nobleman, the Duke of Kingston, whose tutor, a man well
versed in the knowledge of physical science, exerted a profound
influence on the future career of the young Frenchman. At twenty-one
Buffon came into his mother's estate, a fortune yielding an annual
income of £12,000. But this wealth did not change his purpose to gain
knowledge. He traveled through Italy, and after living for a short
period in England returned to France and devoted his time to literary
work. His first efforts were translations of two English works of
science--Hale's 'Vegetable Statics' and Newton's 'Fluxions'; and he
followed these with various studies in the different branches of
physical science.
The determining event in his life, which led him to devote the rest of
his years to the study of natural history, was the death of his friend
Du Fay, the Intendant of the Jardin du Roi (now the Jardin des Plantes),
who on his death-bed recommended Buffon as his successor. A man of
letters, Buffon saw before him the opportunity to write a natural
history of the earth and its inhabitants; and he set to work with a zeal
that lasted until his death in 1788, at the age of eighty-one. His great
work, 'L'Histoire Naturelle,' was the outcome of these years of labor,
the first edition being complete in thirty-six quarto volumes.
The first fifteen volumes of this great work, published between the
years 1749 and 1767, treated of the theory of the earth, the nature of
animals, and the history of man and viviparous quadrupeds; and was the
joint work of Buffon and Daubenton, a physician of Buffon's native
village. The scientific portion of the work was done by Daubenton, who
possessed considerable anatomical knowledge, and who wrote accurate
descriptions of the various animals mentioned. Buffon, however, affected
to ignore the work of his co-laborer and reaped the entire glory, so
that Daubenton withdrew his services. Later appeared the nine volumes on
birds, in which Buffon was aided by the Abbé Sexon. Then followed the
'History of Minerals' in five volumes, and seven volumes of
'Supplements,' the last one of which was published the year after
Buffon's death.
One can hardly admire the personal character of Buffon. He was vain and
superficial, and given to extravagant speculations. He is reported to
have said, "I know but five great geniuses--Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz,
Montesquieu, and myself." His natural vanity was undoubtedly fostered by
the adulation which he received from those in authority. He saw his own
statue placed in the cabinet of Louis XVI., with the inscription
"Majestati Naturæ par ingenium." Louis XV. bestowed upon him a title of
nobility, and crowned heads "addressed him in language of the most
exaggerated compliment." Buffon's conduct and conversation were marked
throughout by a certain coarseness and vulgarity that constantly appear
in his writings. He was foppish and trifling, and affected religion
though at heart a disbeliever.
The chief value of Buffon's work lies in the fact that it first brought
the subject of natural history into popular literature. Probably no
writer of the time, with the exception of Voltaire and Rousseau, was so
widely read and quoted as Buffon. But the gross inaccuracy which
pervaded his writings, and the visionary theories in which he constantly
indulged, gave the work a less permanent value than it might otherwise
have attained. Buffon detested the scientific method, preferring
literary finish to accuracy of statement. Although the work was widely
translated, and was the only popular natural history of the time, there
is little of it that is worthy of a place in the world's best
literature. It is chiefly as a relic of a past literary epoch, and as
the pioneer work in a new literary field, that Buffon's writings appeal
to us. They awakened for the first time a wide interest in natural
history, though their author was distinctly _not_ a naturalist.
Arabella Buckley has said of Buffon and his writings that though "he
often made great mistakes and arrived at false conclusions, still he had
so much genius and knowledge that a great part of his work will always
remain true." Cuvier has left us a good memoir of Buffon in the
'Biographic Universelle.'
[Illustration: Signature: Spencer Trotter]