Isidore Geoffroy, writing of Lamarck, and comparing his position with that taken by Buffon, says, on the whole truly, that "what Buffon ascribes to the general effects of climate, Lamarck maintains to be caused, especially in the case of animals, by the force of habits; _so that, according to him, they are not, properly speaking, modified by the conditions of their existence, but are only induced by these conditions to set about modifying themselves_."[62] But it is very hard to say how much Buffon saw and how much he did not see. He may be trusted to have seen that if he once allowed the thin end of this wedge into his system, he could no more assign limits to the effect which living forms might produce upon their own organisms by effort and ingenuity in the course of long time, than he could set limits to what he had called the power of Nature if he was once to admit that an ass and a horse might, through that power, have been descended from a common ancestor. Nevertheless, he shows no unwillingness or recalcitrancy about letting the wedge enter, for he speaks of domestication as inducing modifications "sufficiently profound to become constant and hereditary in successive generations ... _by its action on bodily habits it influences also their natures, instincts, and most inward qualities_."[63] This is a very thick thin end to have been allowed to slip in unawares; but it is astonishing how little Buffon can see when he likes. I hardly doubt but he would have been well enough pleased to have let the wedge enter still farther, but this fluctuating writer had assigned himself his limits some years before, and meant adhering to them. Again, in this very chapter on Degeneration, to which M. Geoffroy has referred, there are passages on the callosities on a camel's knees, on the llama, and on the haunches of pouched monkeys which might have been written by Dr. Darwin himself.[64] They will appear more fully presently. Buffon now probably felt that he had said enough, and that others might be trusted to carry the principle farther when the time was riper for its enforcement. FOOTNOTES: [51] 'Origin of Species,' p. xiii. ed. 1876. [52] 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' tom. ii. p. 405, 1859. [53] 'Origin of Species,' p. xiv. 1876. [54] 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' tom. ii. p. 383. [55] Tom. iv. [56] 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' tom. ii. p. 391, 1859. [57] Tom. v. p. 59, 1755. [58] Tom. v. p. 60. [59] Tom. vi. p. 58, 1756. [60] Tom. vi. pp. 59-60, 1756. [61] Tom. i. p. 13, 1749. [62] 'Hist. Nat. Gen.,' tom. ii. p. 411, 1859. [63] Tom. xi. p. 290, 1764 (misprinted on title-page 1754). [64] See tom. xiv. p. 326, 1766; and p. 162 of this volume. CHAPTER XI. BUFFON--FULLER QUOTATIONS. Let us now proceed to those fuller quotations which may answer the double purpose of bearing me out in the view of Buffon's work which I have taken in the foregoing pages, and of inducing the reader to turn to Buffon himself.