BUFFON, bkl'foN', GEORGE LOUIS LECLERC, Comte de (1707-88). A French naturalist and philosopher. He was born in Montbard, Sep tember 7. 1707, and died in Paris. April 16, 1788. He received a liberal education and traveled in Italy and England. his father was an eminent lawyer and wished his son to follow his pro fession; but the boy evinced a stronger liking for the sciences, and devoted all his earlier life to studies in mathematics, physics, and agricul ture. In 1739 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences and also appointed keeper of the Royal Gardens and Museum in Paris, out of which were subsequently formed the Jardin des Plantes and the Museum of Natural History. Here he lived for several months of each year, in a large house, which is still standing, and which, after his death, became successively the lodging-place of many famous naturalists. The remainder of the time he lived in the rural vil lage of Montbard, where, and not in the presence of the specimens in the museum in Paris. his Natural History was written. His position, per sonal influence, and wealth enabled him to be of great service to several students rho became eminent investigators, the most important of whom was Lamarck. ButTon himself was never an investigator, nor even an observer. He was a compiler and popularizer of scientific matters, which he presented in an attractive, even bril liant way, and upon which he framed theories and generalizations, some of which were notable as foreshadowing the evolutionary notions of the succeeding generation. "Ills single positive addi tion to zoological science," says Packard. "was generalizations on the geographical distribution of animals." His elaborate and picturesque theories in respect to the geological history of the earth were erroneous and fantastic, yet had the virtue, as was pointed out by Cuvier, of calling attention clearly to the fact that the his tory of life upon the globe was the history of a succession of advancing changes. Soon after taking charge of the museum he began the great work upon natural history, Histoire naturclle, .yenerale et partieuliere (44 volumes, quarto. Paris, 1749-1804), with which his name is most commonly associated, and which was completed by Lac6pede after his death. It passed through
several editions, and was the first work which brought together the information of the time in a manner interesting and intelligible to the gen eral reader, illustrated by really good pictures.
Scattered through this work are passages of speculation and suggestion, which seem accident ally thrown out rather than carefully considered, and which are often so tinged with irony as to make it difficult for the modern critic to deter mine whether their author really believed what he said—an effect in part due, no doubt, to the danger of uttering new ideas in the political and social atmosphere of his time. Some of these suggestions seem definitely to anticipate the evo lutionary ideas of Lamarck and the two Dar wins, and to assert the mutability of species, but they are rarely complete in statement. Ile seems to have been most impressed with the influence of climate as a factor compelling variation in animals and species, and hints that thus many species in the past may have been extinguished or created. Ile even asserts, in a hypothetical way, the idea of the derivation of species by de scent and variation from earlier forms, but fol lows it by a denial. Dr. A. S. Packard, who col lected all the views of Buffon bearing upon biological evolution, as the term is now under stood, concludes an examination of them as follows: "The tentative views of Buffon . . . would now be regarded as in a degree superficial and valueless. But they appeared thirty-four years before Lamarck's theory, and, though not epoch-making, they arc such as will render Buf fon's name memorable for all time." Buffon was admitted to the French Academy in 1753, when he delivered as his inaugural ad dress the famous Diseours su• he style. Ile was also perpetual treasurer of the Academy of Sciences, fellow of the Royal Society of Lou don, and member of all the prominent scientific societies of Europe. He married in 1752. and his son became an officer of the French Army, and was executed in 1793 for political reasons. Consult: Flourens, Histoire des traraux et des ithes de Buffon (Paris, 1S-14), and Packard, Lamarck (New York, 1901).