"But we, ever on the lookout to refer all parts to a certain end--when we can see no apparent use for them, suppose them to have hidden uses, and imagine connections which are without foundation, and serve only to obscure our perception of Nature as she really is: we fail to see that we thus rob philosophy of her true character, which is to inquire into the 'how' of these things--into the manner in which Nature acts--and that we substitute for this true object a vain idea, seeking to divine the 'why'-- the ends which she has proposed in acting" (tome v., p.

104, 1755, _ex_ Butler).
The volumes of the _Histoire naturelle_ on animals, beginning with tome iv., appeared in the years 1753 to 1767, or over a period of fourteen years.

Butler, in his _Evolution, Old and New_, effectually disposes of Isidore Geoffroy St.Hilaire's statement that at the beginning of his work (tome iv., 1753) he affirms the fixity of species, while from 1761 to 1766 he declares for variability.

But Butler asserts from his reading of the first edition that "from the very first chapter onward he leant strongly to mutability, even if he did not openly avow his belief in it....

The reader who turns to Buffon himself will find that the idea that Buffon took a less advanced position in his old age than he had taken in middle life is also without foundation"[132] (p.