Buffon's Natural History. Volume 09 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &cBuffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History. Volume 09 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
Avoiding the use of denominations, which can only be applied to the
monkey, baboon, or ape, we have endeavoured to indicate the sapajous
and the sagoins by the names they bear in their native country. We
are acquainted with six or seven species of sapajous, and six of the
sagoins, most of which have varieties. We have carefully searched
after their names in all authors, and particularly in the writings
of observant travellers who have first mentioned them, because, in
general, the names which any one of them have in their native country
is derived from some particular character, which alone was sufficient
to distinguish it from all the rest. With respect to the varieties,
which in this class of animals are, perhaps, more numerous than the
species, we have endeavoured to refer each to its respective species.
We have had in our possession forty of these animals alive, differing
from each other in a greater or less degree, and from a particular and
attentive examination of which, we think the whole may be reduced to
thirty species, viz. three apes, and one intermediate species between
them and the baboons; three baboons, and one intermediate species
between them and the monkeys; nine monkeys, seven sapajous, and six
sagoins; the rest, or at least the greatest part of them, ought to be
considered only as varieties. But as we are not absolutely certain that
some of these varieties may not be distinct species, we shall endeavour
to give all of them proper denominations.
Here, then, let us consider terrestrial animals, some of which
so greatly resemble the human form, in a new point of view. The
affixing the name of _quadruped_ to all these animals has been done
unjustly. If the exceptions were few we should not have objected to
the application of this term. We are convinced that our definitions
and names, however general, do not comprehend the whole; that there
exists particular beings, which escape the most cautious definitions,
and that intermediate species are constantly discovered. We know
that many, though to all appearance holding the middle station, have
escaped enumeration, and that the general names under which they are
included is incomplete; because Nature should never be considered
in the aggregate, but by unities only, because man has invented
general names only to assist his memory, and because he afterwards
weakly regarded those general names as realities; in short, because
he has endeavoured to comprehend, under the same denominations, very
different animals, and which necessarily required other appellations.
I can give both example and proof, without swerving from the class of
quadrupeds, which, of all animals, are those best known to man, and to
which he was, consequently, the best enabled to give the most precise
denominations.
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