"If from the boundless variety which animated nature presents to us,
we choose the body of some animal or even that of man himself to serve
as a model with which to compare the bodies of other organised beings,
we shall find that though all these beings have an individuality of
their own, and are distinguished from one another by differences of
which the gradations are infinitely subtle, there exists at the same
time a primitive and general design which we can follow for a long
way, and the departures from which (_degenerations_) are far more
gentle than those from mere outward resemblance. For not to mention
organs of digestion, circulation, and generation, which are common to
all animals, and without which the animal would cease to be an animal,
and could neither continue to exist nor reproduce itself--there is
none the less even in those very parts which constitute the main
difference in outward appearance, a striking resemblance which carries
with it irresistibly the idea of a single pattern after which all
would appear to have been conceived. The horse, for example--what can
at first sight seem more unlike mankind? Yet when we compare man and
horse point by point and detail by detail, is not our wonder excited
rather by the points of resemblance than of difference that are to be
found between them? Take the skeleton of a man; bend forward the
bones in the region of the pelvis, shorten the thigh bones, and those
of the leg and arm, lengthen those of the feet and hands, run the
joints together, lengthen the jaws, and shorten the frontal bone,
finally, lengthen the spine, and the skeleton will now be that of a
man no longer, but will have become that of a horse--for it is easy to
imagine that in lengthening the spine and the jaws we shall at the
same time have increased the number of the vertebrae, ribs, and teeth.
It is but in the number of these bones, which may be considered
accessory, and by the lengthening, shortening, or mode of attachment
of others, that the skeleton of the horse differs from that of the
human body. . . . We find ribs in man, in all the quadrupeds, in
birds, in fishes, and we may find traces of them as far down as the
turtle, in which they seem still to be sketched out by means of
furrows that are to be found beneath the shell. Let it be remembered
that the foot of the horse, which seems so different from a man's
hand, is, nevertheless, as M. Daubenton has pointed out, composed of
the same bones, and that we have at the end of each of our fingers a
nail corresponding to the hoof of a horse's foot. Judge, then,
whether this hidden resemblance is not more marvellous than any
outward differences--whether this constancy to a single plan of
structure which we may follow from man to the quadrupeds, from the
quadrupeds to the cetacea, from the cetacea to birds, from birds to
reptiles, from reptiles to fishes--in which all such essential parts
as heart, intestines, spine are invariably found--whether, I say, this
does not seem to indicate that the Creator when He made them would use
but a single main idea, though at the same time varying it in every
conceivable way, so that man might admire equally the magnificence of
the execution and the simplicity of the design." {174}
"If we regard the matter thus, not only the ass and the horse, _but
even man himself_, _the apes_, _the quadrupeds_, _and all animals
might be regarded but as forming members of one and the same family_.
But are we to conclude that within this vast family which the Creator
has called into existence out of nothing, there are other and smaller
families, projected as it were by Nature, and brought forth by her in
the natural course of events and after a long time, of which some
contain but two members, as the ass and the horse, others many
members, as the weasel, martin, stoat, ferret, &c., and that on the
same principle there are families of vegetables, containing ten,
twenty, or thirty plants, as the case may be? If such families had
any real existence they could have been formed only by crossing, by
the accumulation of successive variations (_variation successive_),
and by degeneration from an original type; but if we once admit that
there are families of plants and animals, so that the ass may be of
the family of the horse, and that the one may only differ from the
other through degeneration from a common ancestor, we might be driven
to admit that the ape is of the family of man, that he is but a
degenerate man, and that he and man have had a common ancestor, even
as the ass and horse have 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 any one might think fit
(reduisoient le produit immediat de la creation, aun 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 organised 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." {176}
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-natured irony of one who is merely
amusing himself at other people's expense, but the serious and legitimate
irony of one who must either limit the circle of those to whom he
appeals, or must know how to make the same language appeal differently to
the different capacities of his readers, and who trusts to the good sense
of the discerning to understand the difficulty of his position and make
due allowance for it.
The compromise which he thought fit to put before the public was that
"Each species has a type of which the principal features are engraved in
indelible and eternally permanent characters, while all accessory touches
vary." {177a} It would be satisfactory to know where an accessory touch
is supposed to begin and end.