r
feelings of the animal modified, change of condition being the indirect
cause.[140] He, however, did not suggest the idea of the transmission of
acquired characters by heredity, and does not mention the word heredity.

These are all the facts he stated; but though not an observer, Buffon
was a broad thinker, and was led from these few data to generalize, as
he could well do, from the breadth of his knowledge of geology gained
from the works of his predecessors, from Leibnitz to Woodward and
Whiston.

"After the rapid glance," he says, "at these variations, which
indicate to us the special changes undergone by each species, there
arises a more important consideration, and the view of which is
broader; it is that of the transformation (_changement_) of the
species themselves; it is that more ancient modification which has
gone on from time immemorial, which seems to have been made in each
family or, if we prefer, in each of the genera in which were
comprised more or less allied species."[141]

In the beginning of his first volume he states "that we can descend by
almost imperceptible degrees from the most perfect creature to the most
formless matter--from the most highly organized animal to the most
entirely inorganic substance. We will recognize this gradation as the
great work of nature; and we will observe it not only as regards size
and form, but also in respect of movements and in the successive
generations of every species."

"Hence," he continues, "arises the difficulty of arriving at any
perfect system or method in dealing either with nature as a whole or
even with any single one of her subdivisions. The gradations are so
subtle that we are often obliged to make arbitrary divisions. Nature
knows nothing about our classifications, and does not choose to lend
herself to them without reasons. We therefore see a number of
intermediate species and objects which it is very hard to classify,
and which of necessity derange our system, whatever it may be."[142]

This is all true, and was probably felt by Buffon's predecessors, but it
does not imply that he thought these forms had descended from one
another.

"In thus comparing," he adds, "all the animals, and placing them
each in its proper genus, we shall find that the two hundred species
whose history we have given may be reduced to a quite small number
of families or principal sources from which it is not impossible
th