Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Count of :

A French naturalist and writer, Georges Louis Leclerc, Count of Buffon, lived between 1707 and 1788. According to him the genesis of species is explained by spontaneous generation. There initially existed 38 types of species, whose evolution, which was limited, was influenced in particular by the environment and food; Buffon thus adopted a transformal theory than a fixist one. In the distinction between humans and animals he drew up between the two species a physical and materialist continuity, and a discontinuity, a 'mental' rupture. Animals were not endowed with thoughts, as human beings were, a judgement inscribed within what Philippe Descola calls naturalism. His theories, notably concerning species, were to greatly influence Western thought up until today.