comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

“ Puberty immediately succeeds childhood and attends us to the end of our days. Till this period arrives the sole object of Nature seems to have been the growth and preservation of her work. She supplies the infant with nothing but what is necessary for its bodily increase. Wrapped up, as it were, within itself, its existence, in some respects, resembles that of a vegetable, and which it has not the power to communicate. Presently, however, the principles of life multiply; and it not only possesses what is necessary for its own being but sufficient to give existence to others. ”

“ Man supports his body erect; his attitude is that of command; and his face, which is turned towards the heavens, displays a superior dignity. The image of his soul is painted in his countenance; [64] the excellence of his nature penetrates through the material form in which it is enclosed, and gives to his features a lively animation. His majestic port, his firm and resolute step, announce the superiority of his rank. He touches the earth only with his extremity, and beholds it as if at a disdainful distance. His arms are not given to him for pillars of support ”

“ Why, then, be afraid of death, if our lives have been such as not to make us apprehend the consequences of futurity? Why be afraid of that moment which is preceded by an infinity of others of the same kind? Death is as natural as life, and both happen to us in the same manner, without our having the smallest sense or perception of them. If we enquire of those whose office it is to attend the sick and the dying, we shall find, that, except in a very few acute cases, attended with convulsions, people expire quietly, and without the smallest indication of pain. ”

“ Their eyes are large, expressive, and full of fire; their noses finely shaped, and their lips perfect vermilion; their mouths are small, and constantly expressive of smiles, and their chins form the termination of a perfect oval. Their necks and breasts are admirably formed; their stature is tall, and the shape of their body easy; their skin is white as snow, and their hair of the most beautiful black. They wear a little black stuff cap, over which is fastened a roller of the same colour ”

“ The ancients, whose genius was less limited, and whose philosophy was more extended, were not embarrassed at meeting with things they were at a loss to explain. More intimately acquainted with Nature; with them, a sympathy, a particular correspondence, was only a phenomenon; but with us, if we cannot reduce it to our pretended laws of motion, it is a paradox. They knew that most of the effects of Nature were produced by means beyond human foresight, they knew it was impossible to reduce them to any particular principles of action, and modes of operation ”

“ Things [40] which mankind take a pleasure in believing, however nugatory and unreasonable they may be, they will always believe; yet, as it is the province of history to relate not only the accession of events, and the circumstances of facts, but also the origin of predominant opinions and errors, I think it my indispensable duty, in the History of Man, to examine this favourite idol to which he sacrifices; to consider what the reasons are by which he is prompted to pay that adoration, and to enquire whether virginity, as he understands it, is a real or merely a fabulous divinity. ”

“ Are they not sufficiently wretched in being reduced to a state of slavery; in being obliged always to work without reaping the smallest fruits of their labour, without being abused, buffeted, and treated like brutes? Humanity revolts at those oppressions, which nothing but the thirst of gold could ever have introduced, and which would still, perhaps, produce an aggravated repetition, did not the law prescribe limits to the brutality of the master, and to the misery of his slave. Negroes are compelled to labour ”

“ All these things may happen in every savage nation; for a people among whom there is no regular government, no law, no habitual society, ought rather to be termed a tumultous assemblage of barbarous and independent individuals, who obey nothing but their own private passions, and who have no common interest, are incapable of pursuing one object, and submitting to settled usages which supposes general designs, founded on reason, and approved of by the majority. ”

“ To the arts in use among the Negroes, the Hottentots, it is plain, are utter strangers.
The Dutch travellers say, that the Savages northward of the Cape are smaller than the Europeans; that their colour is a reddish brown; that they are very ugly, and take great pains to render themselves black; and their hair is like that of a man who has long hung in chains. They add, that the Hottentots are of the colour of the Mulattoes; that their visage is unshapely; that they are meagre, of a moderate height, and very nimble; and that their language resembles the clucking of turkey-cocks. ”

“ Another object of dress is, to encrease the size of our figure, and to take up more room [77] in the world than Nature seems to have allotted us. We desire to enlarge our dimensions by swelling out our cloaths and raising our heels; but how bulky soever our dress may be, our vanities still exceed them. The largeness of the doctor’s wig arises from the same pride as the smallness of the beau’s queue. ”

“ It is maternal affection alone which is capable of supporting that continual vigilance, that minute attention, which a new-born infant requires. How then can such vigilance, such care, be expected from a mercenary groveling nurse?
Some nurses desert their children for several hours without feeling the smallest anxiety; and others are so cruel as to be unaffected with their cries; then do the helpless innocents seem to be in a kind of despair; then do they exert every effort of which they are capable; and, till their strength actually forsakes them, implore assistance by their cries. ”

“ If the negroes are deficient in genius, they are by no means so in their feelings; they are cheerful or melancholy, laborious or inactive, friendly or hostile, according to the manner in which they are treated. If properly fed, and well treated, they are contented, joyous, obliging, and on their very countenance we may read the satisfaction of their soul. If hardly dealt with their spirits forsake them, they droop with sorrow, and will die of melancholy. ”

“ The most violent effect of this irritation in women is the furor uterinus, a kind of mania, which disorders their reason and bereaves them of all sense of shame. With words the most lascivious, and with actions the most indecent, is this melancholy distemper accompanied and its origin revealed. I have seen a girl at the age of twelve years, of a brown but lively and florid complexion, small in size, yet strong and plump, commit the most indecent actions at the very sight of a man, from which nothing could divert her, neither the presence of her mother, expostulation, nor punishment. ”

“ A civilized people, who enjoy a life of ease and tranquillity, and who, by the superintendance of a well regulated government, are protected from the fear and oppression of misery, will, from these reasons alone, be more handsome and vigorous than those of a savage and careless nation, of which each individual, deriving no assistance from society, is obliged to provide for his own subsistence, to sustain alternately the excesses of hunger and the effects of unwholesome food; to be alternately exhausted with labour and lassitude ”

“ By the sense of seeing we can form no idea of distances; without aided by the touch, every object would appear to be within our eyes; and an infant, that is as yet a stranger to the sense of feeling, must conceive that every thing it sees exists within itself. The objects only appear to be more or less bulky as they approach to, or recede from the eye; insomuch, that a a fly near the eye will appear larger than an ox at a distance. ”

“ It is particularly in the eyes that the passions are painted, and most readily discovered. The eye seems to belong to the soul more than any other organ; it seems to participate of all its emotions; the softest and most tender as well as the most violent and tumultous. ”

“ The greatest number of mankind die, therefore, without feeling the fatal stroke; and of the few who retain their senses to the last, there is hardly one, perhaps, who does not entertain the hope of recovery. Nature, for the happiness of man, has rendered this principle more powerful than reason. A person dying of a disorder which he already knows to be incurable, by repeated instances in others, and is now assured that it is so by the tears of his friends, and by the countenance or departure of the physician, is still buoyed up with the idea of getting over it ”

“ So strongly do the Japanese resemble the Chinese, that we can hardly scruple to rank them in the same class. Living in a more southern climate they are more yellow or more brown. In general their stature is short, their face, as well as nose, broad and flat, their eyes small, their hair black, and their beard little more than perceptible. They are haughty, [212] fond of war, full of dexterity and vigour, civil and obliging, smooth-tongued, and courteous, but fickle and vain. With astonishing patience they sustain hunger, thirst, cold, heat, fatigue, and all the other hardships of life. ”

“ Should it be asked, why, in the early ages, men lived to 900, 930, and even 960 years? it may, with great probability of reason, be answered, that the productions of the earth might then be of a different nature; as, at the creation, the surface of the globe must have been far less solid and compact than it afterwards became, so it is possible that the productions of Nature, and even the human body itself, being more ductile and more susceptible of extension, their growth was not so soon accomplished as at present. ”

“ In New Holland, where the heat of the climate is not so great, we find people less black, and not unlike the Hottentots. Do not these negroes and Hottentots, whom we meet with in the same latitude, and at so great a distance from the other negroes and Hottentots, evince their colour depends upon the heat of the climate? That there was ever any communication between Africa and this southern continent, it is impossible to suppose; and yet in both we find the same species of men, because the same circumstances occur which occasion the same degrees of heat. ”

“ Such terrible alarms seem, indeed, to be particular to those whom Nature or education have endowed with superior sensibility, as the gross of mankind look [116] forward to death, if not with indifference at least without terror.
In viewing things as they are consists the spirit of true philosophy. With this philosophy our internal sensations would always correspond, were they not perverted by the illusions of imagination, and by the unfortunate habit of fabricating phantoms of excessive pains and of pleasure. Nothing appears terrible nor charming but what is at distance. ”

“ The Savages of Brazil are nearly of the size of the Europeans, but are more vigorous, robust, and alert: they are also subject to fewer diseases, and live longer. Their hair, which is black, seldom whitens with age. They are of a copper-colour, inclining to red: their heads are large, shoulders broad, and hair long. They pluck out their beard, the hair upon the body, and even the eye-brows, from which they acquire an extraordinary fierce look. They pierce the under lip, to ornament it with a little bone polished like ivory, or with a green stone. ”

“ According to Belon, there is not a woman in Asia whose complexion is not fresh as a rose, whose skin is not fair, delicate, and smooth as velvet. Of the earth of China, diluted, they form a kind of ointment, with which they rub all over their bodies before they bathe. Some likewise paint their eye-brows black, while others eradicate the hairs with rusma, and paint themselves eye-brows in the form of a cresent, which are beautiful when viewed at a distance, but quite the reverse when examined more closely. ”

“ When the mind is at rest, all the features of the visage are in a state of profound tranquillity. Their proportion, their union, their harmony, seem to mark the sweet serenity, and to give a true information of what passes within. When the soul, however, is agitated, the human visage becomes a living picture, where the passions are expressed with as much delicacy as energy ”

“ The men are commonly tall, erect, fresh-coloured, and vigorous; their air is graceful, and their appearance engaging. The mildness of their climate, and the sobriety in which they are brought up, contribute much to their personal beauty. This they in no degree inherit from their fathers, for without the above mixture the men of rank in Persia would be extremely ugly and deformed, being descendants of the Tartars. The Persians, on the contrary, are polished and ingenious; their imagination is lively, quick, and fertile; though fond of arts and sciences, they are yet ambitious of warlike honours ”

“ The two great obstacles to the exercise of the sense of feeling then are, first, the uniformity of the figure of the body of the animal, or the defect of the different divided and flexible parts; and secondly, the cloathing of the skin, whether with hair, feathers, scales, shells, &c. The more this cloathing is hard and solid, the less the sentiment of feeling will be; and the finer and more delicate the skin, the sense of feeling will be the more quick and exquisite. Women, among other advantages over men, have their skin more fine, and the sense of feeling more delicate. ”

“ If this calculation is just a wager might be proposed, that an infant, when born, would not live three years. A man who dies at the age of twenty-five is to be lamented for the short duration of his life; and yet, according to these tables, one half of mankind die before the age of three years, consequently, every individual who has passed his third year, far from repining at his fate, ought to consider himself as treated with superior favour by his Creator. But this mortality in children is by no means so great in every place as in London. ”