and the moral sciences. He published at intervals a number of historic essays, among others, one on the "History of Spain;" another on the "Origin of the Kingdom of Sicily and Naples;" a "Chronological History of the Seventeenth Century;" and an "Introduction to the History of the Royal Families of Europe." During these years, however, he was diligently engaged in college tuition for which he was admirably fitted, having a clear and happy faculty both of analysis and exposition. His "French Grammar, on a new plan," sufficiently illustrates this, the arrangement being clear and philosophic, the definitions full and precise, and the detailed expositions throughout lucid and original. In addition to its clearness, however, there is an animation in his style, which gives to these writings a peculiar charm; for Buffier was not only a priest, tutor, and grammarian, but a poet, a man of letters and of the world, conversant with men as well as books, and expert in the use of language as an instrument of thought. Far more justice has been done to Buffer's philosophic writings in this country than in France. By the Scotch school in particular, his power as a shrewd and independent thinker was early recognized and acknowledged. Reid and Stewart have spoken of his "Treatise on Primary Truths" in terms of the highest praise. Among his own countrymen, till quite recently, Buffier has been unaccountably neglected. Voltaire, indeed, speaks of him as the only jesuit that had written sensibly on philosophy, and some of the ideologists refer to him in terms of praise. But, with these exceptions, his name seems to have fallen into oblivion, and his philosophic works to have been almost forgotten for nearly a century after his death. Now, however, in the revived philosophical activity, his writings are studied anew, and tardy justice awarded to his merits as an original thinker.
Buffier's chief philosophical works, those which contain the results of his own speculation, are his "Traite des Premieres Vérités," published in 1717; and his "Elemens de Metaphysiques," in 1724. In these works he reflects, in an improved and original form, the best philosophical tendencies of his time. He sums up the past, and anticipates the future, being at once the disciple of Descartes and Locke, and the herald of the Scotch philosophy. His philosophic position is thus striking and peculiar. Though a jesuit, he could admire Descartes, sympathize with Malebranche, and receive instructions from the Port-royalists. From Descartes he learned to look for principles native to the mind itself—the necessary foundation of all its reasonings. He accepted, in a modified form, his doctrine of innate ideas, adopted his criterion, and followed his method. From Locke he learned to reduce metaphysical speculation within the sphere of experience, to convert philosophy into psychology, by limiting its inquiries to the observation and analysis of the human understanding. By thus accepting the teaching of both masters, he avoided the opposite extremes of error into which their disciples severally fell. The most original and important part of Buffier's philosophy is his doctrine of first truths or primitive principles expounded in each of the treatises above referred to—in the first, as a detailed scientific analysis; in the second, as an outline of processes and results in the form of a dialogue. He died in 1737. An English translation of his most important essay appeared in 1760, with an elaborate preface, in which the translator endeavours to show, but without success, that Reid, and the Scotch writers generally, had both stolen and spoiled the doctrines of Buffier.—T. S. B.
BUFFON, Count de, originally George Louis Leclerc; son of Benjamin Leclerc, councillor in the parliament of Dijon, and of a mother from whom he inherited high intellectual and especially distinguished moral powers; born at Montbar in Burgundy, on 7th September, 1707; died at Paris on 16th April, 1788. The life of Buffon thus extended over the century which bore Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau—three of the greatest masters of the French tongue, and in their several lines nearly the greatest and most productive thinkers of modern times. Buffon, in many respects, stood apart: he was not an encyclopædist, neither was he a politician; yet there is no figure in French literature so stately, if we except the majestic Bossuet. The "Epoques de la Nature" have a sweep and swell recalling the flow of the Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle; nor is either surpassed in such attributes by the superb periods of our own Bacon. David Hume wrote thus of Buffon—"In his figure and air and deportment, he answers your ideas of a marshal of France, rather than that of a philosopher." But he was a philosopher also; his mode and style were not the results of artifice, they belonged to the native stateliness of the man.—We spare no room for narratives of the circumstances under which the directorship of the Jardin du Roi escaped from the position of a sinecure belonging to the king's physician, and, after the brief but spirited interregnum of Dufay, fell in 1739 to Buffon. But it is important to note the kind of preparation constituted by his previous life for an office which he soon rendered illustrious. At the age of thirty-two Buffon indeed had gained no repute as a naturalist, nor had his studies largely gone in that direction. Of respectable fortune and parentage, and distinguished by his personal manners and ability, he had mingled favourably with the world. He had travelled in France, Italy, and England in the companionship of a son of the earl of Kingston; he had exercised his powers of observation, and thrown himself on several subjects of interest and difficulty that then engaged the attention of the learned. He had translated into French Hales' Statics of Vegetables, and Newton's Fluxions, prefacing them very ably; and he had published besides various and unconnected, although rather striking memoirs, on matters pertaining to geometry, physics, and agriculture. When he obtained, indeed, his most auspicious appointment, Buffon's mind was in nowise a magazine of special knowledge; it was rather a magazine of force,—faculties that had never slept, sharpened by various exercise, and brought through practical intercourse with men and things, into that harmony which is at the root of a possession or power as rare as it is essential to greatness—the power of good sense. Many men can never acquire this power, but Buffon was of the class to whom wisdom is possible; and when he entered the Jardin du Roi he brought along with him, wisdom as well as energy—a genius capable of anything, and sound intellectual culture in its train. His triumph need never have been doubted. Sustained by a fine ambition, he ruled his domain en prince. Those mean Jardins du Roi grew under his eye until they were unmatched in Europe, which then signified "the world." Natural history, revivified so recently by the immortal Linnæus, rose in his hands from a collection of formal and arid classifications, to be the sphere of ideas conversant with the order and majesty of the universe: And where the limit to the sway of a Style—spacious as an undisturbed river—which, at the command of one who loved them, described the habits, forms, and qualities of the creatures, with a minuteness, a reality, and an affection never reached by the greatest painter?—Alas! that France should have her visitations of madness,—then forgetting gratitude, and treading under foot her glories! She repents, indeed, and changes; but, although she changes, the scythe has swept her prairies. The only son of this superb son of hers died a colonel of cavalry, at the age of twenty-nine, on a scaffold of the Revolution. It is said that, in quietest dignity, he exclaimed at that supreme hour—"Citoyens, je me nomme Buffon."
Buffon's fitness for his position in the Jardin du Roi was at first gravely and acrimoniously questioned; nor did what was called "The Society of Naturalists" in Paris fail to write of him injuriously. Long afterwards even, he was termed by such men not a naturalist, but a mere edition of Bernardin St. Pierre; and this very partial view of his services and richly endowed nature has not ceased even with the completion and the completed fame of a monument that will endure as long as the French tongue. Within the brief space at our command, we shall endeavour to discriminate as to his qualities and defects.
The energy and sphere of that vast and creative power usually termed "Imagination," in reference to philosophical or even strictly scientific investigation, are for the most part sadly misunderstood. That Buffon himself had not fallen into one form of the prevalent error is manifest enough, the following being his own considerate words—"Comment ose-t-on se flatter de devoiler ces mysteres sans autre guide que son Imagination, et comment fait-on oublier que l'effet est le seul moyen de connaitre la cause? C'est par des experiences fines, raisonnêes et suivies que l'on force la Nature a découvrir son secret: toutes les autres méthodes n'ont jamais reussi, et les vrais physiciens ne peuvent s'empêcher de regarder les anciennes systèmes comme d'anciennes reveries, et sont reduits à lire la plupart des nouveaux, comme on lit les romans." The truth seems to be this:—of great minds there are two classes, or rather three, the third being the rarest. The third is rarest necessarily, containing and expressing the harmony of the other two. In the first class the faculties chiefly incline to discern the resemblances or analogies of things; in the
