"The naturalists who are so ready to establish families among animals and vegetables, do not seem to have sufficiently considered the consequences which should follow from their premises, for these would limit direct creation to as small a number of forms as any one might think fit (reduisoient le produit immediat de la creation, aun nombre d'individus aussi petit que l'on voudroit). _For if it were once shown that we had right grounds for establishing these families_; _if the point were once gained that among animals and vegetables there had been_, _I do not say several species_, _but even a single one_, _which had been produced in the course of direct descent from another species_; _if for example it could be once shown that the ass was but a degeneration from the horse_--_then there is no further limit to be set to the power of nature_, _and we should not be wrong in supposing that with sufficient time she could have evolved all other organised forms from one primordial type_ (_et l'on n'auroit pas tort de supposer_, _que d'un seul etre elle a su tirer avec le temps tous les autres etres organises_)." Buffon now felt that he had sailed as near the wind as was desirable. His next sentence is as follows:-- "But no! It is certain _from revelation_ that all animals have alike been favoured with the grace of an act of direct creation, and that the first pair of every species issued full formed from the hands of the Creator." {176} This might be taken as _bona fide_, if it had been written by Bonnet, but it is impossible to accept it from Buffon. It is only those who judge him at second hand, or by isolated passages, who can hold that he failed to see the consequences of his own premises. No one could have seen more clearly, nor have said more lucidly, what should suffice to show a sympathetic reader the conclusion he ought to come to. Even when ironical, his irony is not the ill-natured irony of one who is merely amusing himself at other people's expense, but the serious and legitimate irony of one who must either limit the circle of those to whom he appeals, or must know how to make the same language appeal differently to the different capacities of his readers, and who trusts to the good sense of the discerning to understand the difficulty of his position and make due allowance for it. The compromise which he thought fit to put before the public was that "Each species has a type of which the principal features are engraved in indelible and eternally permanent characters, while all accessory touches vary." {177a} It would be satisfactory to know where an accessory touch is supposed to begin and end. And again:--