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
2. The four first differences also in the passage I have quoted are
very slight, or ill-founded. The first is the difference of size,
which character is very uncertain, especially as the author himself
observes that his animal was very young. The second, third, and fourth,
are drawn from the form of the nose, the quantity of hair, and other
trivial circumstances. It is the same with many others, which may be
retrenched; for example, the twenty-first character is drawn from
the number of the teeth. It is certain that both this animal and man
have the like number of teeth, and if the one in question had only
twenty-eight, it ought to be attributed to its youth, for we know that
the human race have not more in the early part of their days.
3. The seventh difference is likewise very equivocal; the scrotum of
children is in general very tight, and this animal being young ought
not to have had them pendulous.
4. The forty-eighth character of resemblance, and the twenty-first,
twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fourth, and twenty-fifth marks of
difference, only denote the presence or shape of certain muscles, which
as they vary in most individuals of the human species, ought not to be
considered as essential characters.
5. Every difference and resemblance drawn from parts too minute, such
as the apophyses of the vertebræ, or that are taken from the position
and magnitude of certain parts, should be considered only as accessory
characters; so that Tyson's whole anatomical table may be reduced
to the essential differences and resemblances which we have already
mentioned.
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