Heroes of science

by P. Martin Duncan

The popular writings of Buffon, and his life—Pennant’s life—Lamarck and his life—The rise of popular natural history, and of exact descriptions and philosophical zoology.

If natural history had never been studied in an easy manner, and had not the results of those studies been given to educated men desirous of knowing something about animals in popular yet correct works, very few men would have cared to become zoologists. It is the good, easy, popular, but not necessarily jocular book on natural history that, as a rule, excites the attention of the young, and stimulates the youth to obtain further knowledge. Such books were written at a very interesting time of the world, and just when they were wanted; and the writer was a very remarkable man—a man born to wealth and station, but who, like many others, preferred hard work and the study of nature to sloth and luxurious idleness, and even to the profession of arms, so much in vogue in the early part of the eighteenth century.

George Louis Leclerc de Buffon was born on September 7th, 1707, at Montbard, in Burgundy. He came of good family, and his father was councillor of the Burgundian parliament. His mother, Anne Christine Mazlin, appears to have possessed considerable natural gifts. She was also of good family, and was remarkable, in those days, for the elevation of her mind and strength of character. She was a better parent than the father who, although he was looked upon as a wonder in his province, in consequence of his wasteful living and devotion to feasts, balls, and concerts, was really only a person of average merit. The mother was tenderly loved by her son, but the father gave him some trouble in after years, on account of his follies. Nevertheless, it adds to the interest and good example of Buffon’s character to learn that he did not care to follow the agreeable life of his father, but that he broke away from it and took to wisdom, although having great property, he always lived and behaved like a nobleman of wealth and mental distinction.

Buffon was the oldest of five children, and the rest were devoted by the parents to the priesthood, or to nunneries; so it would appear that the father not only followed the rule of the day, to keep the property in the hands of the eldest son, but to provide for the others in the cheapest possible manner. The young noble was in due course sent to a school at Dijon kept by Jesuit fathers, the best instructors in those days; and report says that the boy was fond of arithmetic and had a character for decision and perseverance. After a while Buffon was entered at the academy of Angers, it being decided that the boy should follow his father as a magistrate and public man. There his love of study became evident, and his application was considerable. One of his associates was a young English nobleman, Lord Kingston, and they became great friends, and probably this friendship was caused and fostered by his lordship’s German tutor, Hinckman, who was a man of considerable learning. When he was nineteen years of age the three friends started for a tour in Italy. Returning to Angers to resume his studies, Buffon became a little wild, and got into a quarrel with a young Englishman at play. Buffon wounded his antagonist and had to leave the town. He went to Paris, but not to waste time; on the contrary, his former love of figures, and his later studies in mathematics, inspired him to translate Newton’s “Fluxions” into French, and also Hale’s “Vegetable Statics,” which subsequently he presented to the Academy of Sciences. Still keeping up his friendship with Lord Kingston, Buffon visited Italy again; and there is no doubt that Hinckman instilled the love of nature into the young man’s mind. They were all at Rome in 1732, when Buffon heard of the death of his mother, who was greatly mourned by him. He was then twenty-five years of age, and became very wealthy, as he was his mother’s heir. Journeying in Switzerland he began to know other English people of distinction. All these friendships led him at last to England, and he went to Thoresby, the seat of Lord Kingston, and remained in the country for some months.

Buffon had a very fine person, liked a little “show,” and the rather solemn and stilted manners of the British nobility pleased him. It was this stay in England, and his friendships, that gave Buffon some of the manners of the aristocracy of the day, so that Hume said of him that he resembled a marshal of France more than a man of letters. These habits, amongst which courtesy and true gentility—that is to say, treating other people as we would they should treat us in society—were predominant, clung to Buffon; and even when at home, and at his very hard and incessant labour in natural history, he kept up his state, and was the great French noble as well as the humble student of nature.

It is a curious fact, but one very readily explained, that Buffon, like nearly all the great zoologists, began his scientific life as a botanist. Plants are ever at hand, and their classification, good or bad, is readily learned. One of his first works, presented after receiving the honour of election to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, was on a question of the influence of barking trees; and others were on agriculture. He gave a proof that he was acquainted with the human frame, for he wrote on the causes of squinting.

Scientific men of nobility were rare in France in those days, and Buffon was appointed keeper to the Jardin du Roi and the Royal Museum. Anxious to continue his studies about trees, he prevailed on the king to let him experiment on a grand scale in one of the royal forests. But this was only a part of his work, for he commenced that great book on natural history which was always after to be associated with his name. It was not to be a simple book on animals, but on the history of the earth as well; and, in fact, he intended it to be an encyclopædia of all natural knowledge except mathematics and figures. It was a great conception and it was carried out year after year during success, domestic happiness and trouble. The perseverance and patience of the man were wonderful; and fortunately he had the means of collecting what was required, of buying books and of having secretaries to do the very troublesome and mechanical part of writing. He was short-sighted and wrote badly. It was not vanity, nor the desire of being great, that made Buffon work; certainly it was not amusement. But he was happy in his work, and he stated that genius is a gift which comes not from man; and the great man is an instrument in the Divine hand; he has a mission which may be for light or to ruin, and neither the environment of pleasure or glory or the troubles of fortune, ill-health, or misery should deter him from his ends. Genius, Buffon also termed, a very great aptitude for patience.

Daubenton assisted Buffon in his first three volumes of natural history, and they came out in 1749, and the other volumes came out year by year until his death.

Buffon lived carefully, and kept up the curious state of the French gentlemen of his day in his house. After he was dressed, he dictated letters and regulated his domestic affairs, and at six o’clock he retired to his studies in a building called the tower of St. Louis. This was in the garden, and far away from the house, and the only furniture in it was a wooden writing-table, with its cupboards and drawers, and an armchair. Neither pictures nor books relieved the naked appearance of the apartment, or distracted the thoughts of the learned professor. The entrance was by green folding doors, the walls were painted green, and the interior had the appearance of a chapel in consequence of the elevation of the roof. Within this garden was another building, where Buffon resided during the greater part of the year, as it was warmer than the other place, and here he composed most of his works. It was a small square building, situated on the side of a terrace, and was ornamented with drawings of birds and beasts. At nine o’clock Buffon usually took an hour’s rest and his breakfast, which consisted of a piece of bread and two glasses of wine. When he had written for two hours after breakfast, he returned to the house. At dinner he spent a considerable time in conversation, and relaxed his mind from work entirely, enjoying the wit and gaiety of his friends. He usually slept for an hour after dinner in his room and took a solitary walk, and during the rest of the evening he either conversed with his family or his guests, or sat at his desk examining papers which were submitted to his judgment. At nine o’clock he went to bed. In 1762, when fifty-five years of age, Buffon married a lady who was in every way suited to him, and who, moreover, took a deep interest in his studies. He was greatly attached to her, and her companionship made the country life all the more pleasant. Four years afterwards Louis XIV. ennobled Buffon and invited him to Fontainebleau to offer him the post of Administrator of the Forests of France, but Buffon declined the office. This great man was not above a little vanity: he liked to read the most interesting parts of his works to his friends, and to draw forth their admiration. He was, moreover, fond of dress and grandeur, but that was part of the society of his day. He had a fine countenance and figure, and it was his delight to display them to the best advantage. He dressed in the extreme of fashion, and amidst his studies found time to submit his head (perhaps it was only his wig) to the hairdresser, two or three times a day. On Sundays the peasantry of Montbard assembled to gaze at the Count after the service of the church, when he passed through their ranks magnificently dressed, with his son and his retainers.