Auteur : Ernst Mayr, The Growth of biological thought : diverstiy, evolution and inheritance, Cambridge (MA), The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982.

Date et contexte : 1982

Extrait : « It is no exaggeration to claim that virtually all the well-known writers of the Enlightenment, and even later generations in France as well as in other countries were Buffonians, either directly or indirectly. » p. 330. « It makes no difference which of the authors in the second half of the eighteenth century one reads, their discussions are, in the last analysis, merely commentaries on Buffon’s work. Except for Aristotle and Darwin, there has been no other student of organisms who has had as far-reaching an influence. » p. 337. Cf. trad. Marcel Blanc, Histoire de la biologie. Diversité, évolution, et hérédité, Paris, Fayard, 1989.