It was necessary to confirm from time to time, and even to enlarge, the idea of God in the mind and heart of man.

Now every new discovery produces this grand effect, every new step that we make in nature brings us nearer to the Creator.

A new verity is a species of miracle; its effect is the same, and it only differs from the real miracle in that the latter is a startling stroke which God strikes instantaneously and rarely, instead of making use of man to discover and exhibit the marvels which He has hidden in the womb of Nature, and in that, as these marvels are operating every instant, as they are open at all times and for all time to his contemplation, God is constantly recalling him to Himself, not only by the spectacle of the moment, but, further, by the successive development of His works." Buffon was still working at eighty years of age; he had undertaken a dissertation on style, a development of his reception speech at the French Academy.

Great sorrows had crossed his life.

Married late to a young wife whom he loved, he lost her early; she left him a son, brought up under his wing, and the object of his constant solicitude.