"
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.
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