comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

“ By a mild and fertile heat all the germs of existence are animated and unfolded, and they are nourished and supported by a plentiful supply of excellent waters. Considerable eminences dispersed over the surface of the land, not only check, but collect the moist vapours which float in the air, and give rise to perpetual fountains. Immense cavities evidently formed for the reception of those waters, separate islands and continents. The sea in extent is equal to that of the land: nor is this a cold and barren element, but a new empire, no less rich and no less furnished with inhabitants. ”

“ Having shewn that impulsion depends on attraction; that the expansive force, like the attractive, becomes negative; that light, heat, and fire, are only modes of the common existing matter; in one word, that there exists but one sole force, and one sole matter, ever ready to attract or repel, according to circumstances; let us see how, with this single spring, and this single subject, Nature can vary her works, ad infinitum. ”

“ Fire, whether luminous or obscure, never exists without a great heat, whereas light often burns with a noise without the least sensible heat. Light appears to be the work of nature while fire is only the produce of the industry of man. Light subsists of itself, and is found diffused in the immense space of the whole universe. Fire cannot subsist without food, and is only found in some parts of this space where man preserves it, and in some parts of the profundity of the earth, where it is also supported by suitable food. ”

“ Is it not greater and more worthy the idea we ought to have of the Creator, to suppose that there every where exists beings who acknowledge his power and celebrate his glory, than to depopulate all the universe, excepting the earth, and to despoil it of all beings, by reducing it to a profound solitude, in which we should only find a desart space, and frightful masses of inanimate matter. ”

“ Every one of them circulates in a different plane, and they each describe orbits in different periods of time; for some perform their revolutions in a few years, while others require several centuries. The sun, simply moving round his own centre, remains, as it were at rest in the midst, and, at the same time, serves as a torch, a focus, and an axis, to all and every part of this wonderful machine. ”

“ It is sufficient that the forces of attraction and expansion are two general, real, and fixed effects, for us to receive them for causes of particular ones; and impulsion is one of these effects, which we must not look upon as a general cause, known and demonstrated by our senses, since we have proved that this force of impulsion cannot exist nor act, but by the means of attraction, which does not fall upon our senses. Nothing is more evident, nay, certain, than the communication of motion by impulsion; it is sufficient for one body to strike another to produce this effect. ”

“ Nature is hideous and unflourishing; it is I alone who can render her agreeable and vivacious. Let us drain the marshes, and give animation to the waters, by converting them into brooks and canals; let us make use of that active and devouring element, whose power we have discovered; let us apply fire to this burthensome load of vegetables, and to those decaying forests which are already half destroyed; let us complete the work by destroying with iron what cannot be removed by fire ”

“ But if we ever can discover the number, magnitude, and velocity, of all the planets which circulate round the sun, we shall then be able to judge of the quantity of heat which the moon can give to the earth, by the much [320] greater quantity of fire which all these vast bodies excite in the sun. For my own part I am greatly inclined to think that the heat produced by this cause in the globe of the earth, forms a very considerable part of its own heat: and that, in consequence, we must still extend the limits of time for the duration of nature. ”

“ Omnipotent God! by whose presence Nature is supported, and harmony among the laws of the universe maintained; who seest from thy immoveable throne in the empyrean all the celestial spheres rolling under thy feet without deviation or disorder; who, from the bosom of repose, every instant renewest their vast movements, and who alone governs in profound peace an infinite number of heavens and of earths, restore, restore tranquillity to a troubled [342] world! Let the earth be silent! ”

“ Combustion supposes something more than volatilisation; it is not sufficient that the parts of matter be sufficiently separated to be carried off by those of heat; they must also be of an analogous nature to fire; without that, mercury, being the most fluid next to air, would also be the most combustible, whereas experience demonstrates, that though very volatile it is not combustible. Matter is, in general, composed of four principal substances, called elements, that is, earth, water, air, and fire. ”

“ Water, indeed, is apparently more fertile than the earth; from heat it receives motion and life. In one season the sea produces more animals than the earth sustains; but its production of vegetables is infinitely less. And because that the inhabitants of the ocean have not a sufficient and permanent supply of vegetables, they are compelled to feed upon each other; and it is to this necessity that their immense multiplication may be referred.
As in the beginning every species was created, the first individual of each has served for a model to their descendants. ”

“ I think I have now demonstrated, that all the little laws of chemical affinities, which appeared so variable and different, are no other than the general laws of attraction, common to all matter; that this great law, always constant and the same, appeared only to vary in its expression, which cannot be the same when the figure of bodies enters, like an element, into their distance. With this new key we can unlock the most profound secrets of Nature; we can attain the knowledge of the figure of the primitive parts of different substances ”

“ Hence is not heat a mode of being, a modification of matter, which, in fact, differs less than all the rest from that of light, but which can be considered apart, and still more easily conceived? It is, nevertheless, certain, that much fewer discoveries have been made on the nature of heat than on that of light; whether man better catches what he sees than what he feels; whether light, presenting itself generally as a distinct and different substance from all the rest, has appeared worthy of a particular consideration ”

“ In the great mass of solid matter, which the earth represents, the superficial is the least pure. All the matter deposited by the sea, in form of sediment, all stones produced by shell-animals, all substances composed by the combinations of the waste of the animal or vegetable kingdom, and all those which have been changed by the fires of volcanos, or sublimated by the internal heat of the globe, are mixed and transformed substances; and although they compose great masses they do not clearly represent to us the element of earth. ”

“ Merciful God! author of all beings, whose paternal regards extend to every created object, and to man, thy principal favourite; thou hast illumined his mind with a ray of thy immortal light; penetrate also his heart with a shaft of thy love; thy divine sentiment, when universally diffused, will unite the most hostile spirits; man will no longer dread the sight of man, nor will his hand any longer continue to be armed with murdering steel; the devouring flames of war will no longer stop the sources of generations ”

“ Its surface is beautifully enamelled with various flowers, and a constant renewing verdure; it is inhabited by numberless species of inhabitants, among which, man, placed to assist the intentions of Nature, presides over every other being, finds a place of perfect repose, and a delightful habitation. He alone is endowed with knowledge, and dignified with the faculty of admiration; the Almighty has rendered him capable of distinguishing the wonders of the universe, and a witness of his increasing miracles. ”

“ When in a serene and clear night we contemplate all those stars with which the celestial vault is illuminated, it might be imagined that by being conveyed into another planet more remote from the sun, we should see these glittering stars larger, and emitting a brighter light, since we should be so much nearer to them. ”

“ The principle of all heat seems to be the attrition of bodies; all friction, that is, all contrary motion between solid matters produces heat; and if the same effect do not happen to fluids, it is because their parts do not touch close enough to rub one against the other; and that, having little adherence between them, their resistance to the shock of other bodies is too weak for the heat to be produced to a sensible degree; but we often see light produced by an attrition of a fluid, without feeling any heat. ”

“ Light is therefore no more, and in this single instance, only the principle of fire and not the fire itself: even this principle is not immediate, for it supposes the intermediate one of heat, and which appears to appertain more than light to the essence of fire. Now heat exists as often without light as light exists without heat: these two principles might, therefore, appear not to bind them necessarily together; their effects are not contemporary, since in certain circumstances we feel heat long before light appears, and in others we see light long before we feel any heat. ”

“ Nevertheless, it would be advancing too much to pretend that we must attribute all to fusibility, and nothing to density. Nature never deprives herself of one of her properties in favour of another in an absolute manner; that is to say, in a mode that the first has not any influence on the second. Thus, density may be of some weight in the progress of heat; but we may safely affirm, that in the six metals it has very little comparatively with fusibility. ”

“ BY our former observations it appears that air is the necessary and first food of fire, which can neither subsist nor propagate but by what it assimilates, consumes, or carries off, of that element, whereas of all material substances, air is that which seems to exist the most independently of the aid or presence of fire; for although it habitually has nearly the same heat as other matters on the surface of the earth, it can do without it and requires infinitely less than any of the rest to support its fluidity, since the most excessive cold cannot deprive it of that. ”

“ If we receive light on black or white bodies, rude or polished, it will easily be perceived, that some admit, and others repel it; and that instead of being affected in a uniform manner as they are by heat, they are only so relatively to their nature, colour, and polish. Black will absorb more light than white, and the rough more than the smooth. Light once absorbed remains fixed in the body which received it, nor quits it like heat; whence we must conclude, that atoms of light may become constituent parts of bodies by uniting with the matter which composes them ”

“ This might lead us to imagine, that the atoms of light would be very cold when they came to the surface of our atmosphere; but that by traversing the great extent of this transparent mass, they receive a new heat by friction. The infinite velocity with which the particles of light rub against those of the air, must produce a heat so much the stronger as the friction is more multiplied: and it is, probably, for this reason, that the heat of the solar rays is found much stronger in the lower parts of the atmosphere, and that the coldness of the air appears to augment as we are elevated. ”

“ Light, heat, fire, air, water, and salts, are steps by which we descend from the top of Nature’s ladder to its base, which is fixed earth. And these are at the same time the only principles that we must admit and combine for the explanation of all phenomena. ”

“ For what can be said on the nature of the sun but that it is a body of prodigious volume, an enormous mass of matter penetrated by fire, which appears to subsist without aliment, and which resembles a metal or a solid body in incandescence? And from whence can this constant state of incandescence, this continually renewed production of fire proceed, whose consumption does not appear to be supported by any aliment, and whose deperdition is at least insensible, although constant for such a great number of years? ”

“ This accumulation of experience in one man, almost extends the limits of his being to infinity. He is born no more than a simple individual, like other animals, capable only of attending to present sensations; but he becomes afterwards nearly the being which we supposed to represent the whole species; he reads what has past, sees the present, and judges of the future; and in the torrent of time, which carries off and absorbs all the individuals of the universe, he perceives that the species are permanent, and Nature invariable. ”