1. His Curacy was a post to be occupied by some feebler man than Felix; a man whose powers were only equal to the quiet work of carrying on the labors begun by his rector.

2. In his magnum opus, Natural History: General and Particular, Count Buffon, one of the leading natural historians of the 18th century, argued that all life in the New World, particularly North America, was degenerate—weaker, smaller and feebler—than life in the Old World