The first fifteen volumes of this great work, published between the years 1749 and 1767, treated of the theory of the earth, the nature of animals, and the history of man and viviparous quadrupeds; and was the joint work of Buffon and Daubenton, a physician of Buffon's native village. The scientific portion of the work was done by Daubenton, who possessed considerable anatomical knowledge, and who wrote accurate descriptions of the various animals mentioned. Buffon, however, affected to ignore the work of his co-laborer and reaped the entire glory, so that Daubenton withdrew his services. Later appeared the nine volumes on birds, in which Buffon was aided by the Abbé Sexon. Then followed the 'History of Minerals' in five volumes, and seven volumes of 'Supplements,' the last one of which was published the year after Buffon's death.
One can hardly admire the personal character of Buffon. He was vain and superficial, and given to extravagant speculations. He is reported to have said, "I know but five great geniuses--Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself." His natural vanity was undoubtedly fostered by the adulation which he received from those in authority. He saw his own statue placed in the cabinet of Louis XVI., with the inscription "Majestati Naturæ par ingenium." Louis XV. bestowed upon him a title of nobility, and crowned heads "addressed him in language of the most exaggerated compliment." Buffon's conduct and conversation were marked throughout by a certain coarseness and vulgarity that constantly appear in his writings. He was foppish and trifling, and affected religion though at heart a disbeliever.
The chief value of Buffon's work lies in the fact that it first brought the subject of natural history into popular literature. Probably no writer of the time, with the exception of Voltaire and Rousseau, was so widely read and quoted as Buffon. But the gross inaccuracy which pervaded his writings, and the visionary theories in which he constantly indulged, gave the work a less permanent value than it might otherwise have attained. Buffon detested the scientific method, preferring literary finish to accuracy of statement. Although the work was widely translated, and was the only popular natural history of the time, there is little of it that is worthy of a place in the world's best literature. It is chiefly as a relic of a past literary epoch, and as the pioneer work in a new literary field, that Buffon's writings appeal to us. They awakened for the first time a wide interest in natural history, though their author was distinctly not a naturalist.
Arabella Buckley has said of Buffon and his writings that though "he often made great mistakes and arrived at false conclusions, still he had so much genius and knowledge that a great part of his work will always remain true." Cuvier has left us a good memoir of Buffon in the 'Biographic Universelle.'
NATURE
From the 'Natural History'
So with what magnificence Nature shines upon the earth! A pure light extending from east to west gilds successively the hemispheres of the globe. An airy transparent element surrounds it; a warm and fruitful heat animates and develops all its germs of life; living and salutary waters tend to their support and increase; high points scattered over the lands, by arresting the airy vapors, render these sources inexhaustible and always fresh; gathered into immense hollows, they divide the continents. The extent of the sea is as great as that of the land. It is not a cold and sterile element, but another empire as rich and populated as the first. The finger of God has marked the boundaries. When the waters encroach upon the beaches of the west, they leave bare those of the east. This enormous mass of water, itself inert, follows the guidance of heavenly movements. Balanced by the regular oscillations of ebb and flow, it rises and falls with the planet of night; rising still higher when concurrent with the planet of day, the two uniting their forces during the equinoxes cause the great tides. Our connection with the heavens is nowhere more clearly indicated. From these constant and general movements result others variable and particular: removals of earth, deposits at the bottom of water forming elevations like those upon the earth's surface, currents which, following the direction of these mountain ranges, shape them to corresponding angles; and rolling in the midst of the waves, as waters upon the earth, are in truth the rivers of the sea.