{{Short description|French naturalist, mathematician, and cosmologist (1701–1788)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
| image             = François Hubert Drouais - Portrait of Buffon.jpg
| image_size        = 
| alt               = Painting of a portly gentleman in a powdered grey wig and richly embroidered clothes.
| caption           = Portrait by [[François-Hubert Drouais]], 1753
| birth_name        = Georges-Louis Leclerc
| birth_date        = {{birth date|1707|9|7|df=y}}
| birth_place       = [[Montbard]], [[Burgundy (historical region)|Burgundy]], France
| death_date        = {{death date and age|1788|4|16|1707|9|7|df=y}}
| death_place       = Paris, France
| field             = [[Natural history]]
| workplaces        = [[Académie Française]]
| known_for         = ''[[Histoire Naturelle]]'' (1749–1804)<br />[[Buffon's needle problem]]<br />[[Rejection sampling]]
| signature         = Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon signature.svg
}}

'''Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon''' ({{IPA|fr|ʒɔʁʒ lwi ləklɛʁ kɔ̃t də byfɔ̃|lang}}; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, and cosmologist. He held the position of ''intendant'' (director) at the ''Jardin du Roi'', since called the [[Jardin des Plantes]].

Buffon's works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent French scientists [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck]] and [[Georges Cuvier]]. Buffon published thirty-six [[quarto]] volumes of his ''[[Histoire Naturelle]]'' during his lifetime, with additional volumes based on his notes and further research being published in the two decades following his death.<ref>{{cite book | author-link= Paul Lawrence Farber |last1=Farber |first1=Paul |title=Finding Order in Nature |date=2000 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |location=Baltimore |page=14}}</ref>

[[Ernst Mayr]] wrote that "Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in the second half of the 18th century".<ref name="Mayrp330">Mayr, Ernst 1981. ''The Growth of Biological Thought''. Cambridge: Harvard. p 330</ref> Credited with being one of the first naturalists to recognize [[ecological succession]], he was forced by the theology committee at the [[University of Paris]] to recant his theories about [[historical geology|geological history]] and animal evolution because they contradicted the biblical narrative of creation.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brody |first=David Eliot |title=The Science Class You Wish You Had |date=6 August 2013 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0399160325 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8kiLDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA186}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Larsen |first=James A. |title=Ecology of the Northern Lowland Bogs and Conifer Forests |date=22 October 2013 |publisher=[[Elsevier]] |isbn=9781483269863 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uvggBQAAQBAJ}}</ref>

==Early life==

Georges Louis Leclerc was born at [[Montbard]], in the province of [[Burgundy]] to Benjamin François Leclerc, a minor local official in charge of the [[gabelle]] salt tax and Anne-Christine Marlin, also from a family of civil servants. Georges was named after his mother's uncle (and [[godparent|godfather]]) Georges Blaisot, the [[tax-farmer]] for the [[Duchy of Savoy|Duke of Savoy]] for all of [[Sicily]]. In 1714 Blaisot died childless, leaving a considerable fortune to his seven-year-old godson. Benjamin Leclerc then purchased an estate containing the nearby village of [[Buffon, Côte-d'Or|Buffon]] and moved the family to [[Dijon]] acquiring various offices there as well as a seat in the Dijon [[Parlement]].

Georges attended the Jesuit College of Godrans in Dijon from the age of ten onwards. From 1723 to 1726 he then studied law in Dijon, the prerequisite for continuing the family tradition in civil service. In 1728 Georges left Dijon to study mathematics and medicine at the [[University of Angers]] in France. At Angers in 1730 he made the acquaintance of Evelyn Pierrepont, the young English [[Evelyn Pierrepont, 2nd Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull|Duke of Kingston]], who was on his grand tour of Europe, and traveled with him on a large and expensive entourage for a year and a half through southern France and parts of Italy.<ref>Otis E. Fellows and Stephen F. Milliken, Buffon, Twayne's World Authors Series; TWAS 243 (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1972), 41-43.</ref>

There are persistent undocumented rumors from this period about duels, abductions and secret trips to England. In 1732 after the death of his mother and before the impending remarriage of his father, Georges left Kingston and returned to Dijon to secure his inheritance. Having added 'de Buffon' to his name while traveling with the Duke, he repurchased the village of Buffon, which his father had meanwhile sold off. With a fortune of about 80,000 [[French livre|livres]] (at the time, worth nearly 27 kilograms of gold), Buffon set himself up in Paris to pursue science, at first primarily mathematics and mechanics, and the increase of his fortune.<ref>Otis E. Fellows and Stephen F. Milliken, Buffon, Twayne's World Authors Series; TWAS 243 (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1972), 40-50.</ref> On his personal estate in Montbard, he had a garden pavilion and shell grotto built to store his porcelain collection.<ref>Carole Nataf, "The Aesthetics of Deep Time: Unearthing Georges‐Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon's Rococo Shell Grotto and Porcelain Room," Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 49, no. 1 (2026): 85–112, https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.70018.</ref>

== Career ==

[[File:Françoise Foliot - Buffon - Microscope 1.jpg|thumb|upright|Buffon's microscope]]

In 1732 he moved to [[Paris]], where he met [[Voltaire]] and other intellectuals. He lived in the [[Faubourg Saint-Germain]], with [[Gilles-François Boulduc]], first apothecary of the King, professor of chemistry at the [[Jardin des plantes#The_Royal_Garden_of_Medicinal_Plants|Jardin du Roi]], member of the [[French Academy of Sciences|Academy of Sciences]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Roger |first=Jacques |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h-f1bQzRt8UC&dq=%2522Gilles-Fran%25C3%25A7ois%2520Boulduc%2522&pg=PR11 |title=Buffon: A Life in Natural History |date=1997 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-2918-7 |pages=15 }}</ref> He first made his mark in the field of mathematics and, in his {{lang|fr|Sur le jeu de franc-carreau}} (''On the game of fair-square''), introduced differential and integral [[calculus]] into [[probability theory]]; the problem of [[Buffon's needle problem|Buffon's needle]] in [[probability theory]] is named after him. In 1734 he was admitted to the [[French Academy of Sciences]]. During this period he corresponded with the Swiss mathematician [[Gabriel Cramer]].{{fact|date=January 2026}}

His protector [[Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas|Maurepas]] had asked the Academy of Sciences to do research on wood for the construction of ships in 1733. Soon afterward, Buffon began a long-term study, performing some of the most comprehensive tests to date on the mechanical properties of [[wood]]. Included were a series of tests to compare the properties of small specimens with those of large members. After carefully testing more than a thousand small specimens without knots or other defects, Buffon concluded that it was not possible to extrapolate to the properties of full-size timbers, and he began a series of tests on full-size structural members.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pluvinage |first1=G. |last2=Triboulot |first2=P. |title=Sur le mémoire de Buffon intitulé "expériences sur la force du bois" - 1740 |journal=Revue Forestière Française |issue=1 |date=1983 |doi=10.4267/2042/21970 |page=53 |url=https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03423874 |access-date=22 April 2026}}</ref>

In 1739 he was appointed head of the Parisian [[Jardin des plantes#The Buffon period (1739-1788)|Jardin du Roi]] with the help of Maurepas; he held this position to the end of his life. Buffon was instrumental in transforming the Jardin du Roi into a major research center and museum. He also enlarged it, arranging the purchase of adjoining plots of land and acquiring new botanical and zoological specimens from all over the world.{{fact|date=January 2026}}

Thanks to his talent as a writer, he was invited to join the [[Académie Française]] in 1753 and then in 1768 he was elected to the [[American Philosophical Society]].<ref>Bell, Whitfield J., and Charles Greifenstein, Jr. Patriot-Improvers: Biographical Sketches of Members of the American Philosophical Society. 3 vols. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1997, 3:569–572.</ref> In his {{lang|fr|Discours sur le style}} ("Discourse on Style"), pronounced before the Académie française, he said, "Writing well consists of thinking, feeling and expressing well, of clarity of mind, soul and taste&nbsp;... The style is the man himself" ("{{lang|fr|Le style c'est l'homme même}}").<ref>Fellows, Otis E. and Stephen F. Milliken 1972. ''Buffon''. New York: Twayne. pp 149–54</ref> Unfortunately for him, Buffon's reputation as a literary stylist also gave ammunition to his detractors: the mathematician [[Jean le Rond d'Alembert]], for example, called him "the great phrase-monger".

In 1752 Buffon married Marie-Françoise de Saint-Belin-Malain, the daughter of an impoverished noble family from Burgundy, who had been enrolled in the convent school run by his sister. Madame de Buffon's second child, a son born in 1764, survived childhood; she herself died in 1769. When in 1772 Buffon became seriously ill and the promise that his son (then only 8) should succeed him as director of the Jardin became clearly impracticable and was withdrawn, the King raised Buffon's estates in Burgundy to the status of a county – and thus Buffon (and his son) became a [[count]]. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1782.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=28 July 2014}}</ref> Buffon died in Paris in 1788.

He was buried in a chapel adjacent to the church of Sainte-Urse Montbard; during the [[French Revolution]], his tomb was broken into and the lead that covered the coffin was ransacked to produce bullets. His son, George-Louie-Marie Buffon (often called Buffonet) was guillotined on 10 July 1794.<ref>Roberts, Jason, ''Every Living Thing'' (New York, Random House, 2024), p. 263</ref> Buffon's [[heart]] was initially saved, as it was guarded by [[Suzanne Curchod|Suzanne Necker]] (wife of [[Jacques Necker]]), but was later lost. Today, only Buffon's [[cerebellum]] remains, as it is kept in the base of the statue by [[Augustin Pajou|Pajou]] that [[Louis XVI]] had commissioned in his honor in 1776, located at the [[National Museum of Natural History, France|Museum of Natural History]] in [[Paris]].

His {{lang|fr|Histoire naturelle}} was a source of inspiration for the painters of the [[Sèvres]] factory, giving rise to porcelain services called Buffon. The name of the different species is inscribed on the back of each piece. Several "Buffon services" were produced during the reign of Louis XVI; the first was intended for the [[Charles X of France|Count of Artois]], in 1782.

== ''Histoire Naturelle'' ==

[[File:GLBuffon.jpg|thumb|upright|Statue of Buffon in the {{lang|fr|[[Jardin des plantes]]}}]]
[[File:Montbard - Musée Buffon - Preuves de la théorie de la Terre.jpg|thumb|"Preuves de la théorie de la Terre", in the Buffon Museum, [[Montbard]], [[Côte-d'Or]], France]]

Buffon's ''[[Histoire Naturelle|Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière]]'' (1749–1788: in 36 volumes; an additional volume based on his notes appeared in 1789) was originally intended to cover all three "kingdoms" of nature but the ''Histoire naturelle'' ended up being limited to the animal and mineral kingdoms, and the animals covered were only the birds and quadrupeds. "Written in a brilliant style, this work was read ... by every educated person in Europe".<ref name="Mayrp330"/> Those who assisted him in the production of this great work included [[Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton]], Philibert Guéneau de Montbeillard, and Gabriel-Léopold Bexon, along with numerous artists. Buffon's {{lang|fr|Histoire naturelle}} was translated into many different languages, making him one of the most widely read authors of the day, a rival to [[Montesquieu]], [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]], and [[Voltaire]].<ref>Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de, ''Encyclopedia of Life Sciences.'' Biographies Plus Illustrated, H.W. Wilson Company, 2001. [http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/login.jhtml vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com] (Accessed 26 December 2005)</ref>

In the opening volumes of the ''Histoire naturelle'' Buffon questioned the usefulness of mathematics, criticized [[Carl Linnaeus]]'s taxonomical approach to natural history, outlined a history of the Earth with little relation to the Biblical account, and proposed a theory of reproduction that ran counter to the prevailing theory of [[Preformationism|pre-existence]]. The early volumes were condemned by the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne. Buffon published a retraction, but he continued publishing the offending volumes without any change.

In the course of his examination of the animal world, Buffon noted that different regions have distinct plants and animals despite similar environments, a concept later known as Buffon's Law. This is considered to be the first principle of [[biogeography]]. He made the suggestion that species may have both "improved" and "degenerated" after dispersing from a center of creation. In volume 14 he argued that all the world's [[Quadrupedalism|quadrupeds]] had developed from an original set of just thirty-eight quadrupeds.<ref>Roger, Jacques 1989. ''Buffon: un philosophe au Jardin du Roi'' Paris: Fayard. pp 434–5</ref> On this basis, he is sometimes considered a "[[Transmutation of species|transformist]]" and a precursor of [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]. He also asserted that [[Climate variability and change|climate change]] may have facilitated the worldwide spread of species from their centers of origin. Still, interpreting his ideas on the subject is not simple, for he returned to topics many times in the course of his work.

[[File:Buffon-1.jpg|thumb|Volumes 1–12 of a 1774 edition of ''Supplement to Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière'']]
Buffon originally held that "the animals common both to the old and new world are smaller in the latter,"<ref>Jefferson, Thomas, ''Notes on the State of Virginia'' (Boston, Wells and Lilly, 1829), p. 47</ref> ascribing this to environmental conditions. Upon meeting Buffon, [[Thomas Jefferson]] attempted "to convince him of his error," noting that "the reindeer could walk under the belly of our moose." Buffon, who was "absolutely unacquainted" with the moose, asked for a specimen.<ref>Jefferson, Thomas, ''The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: 1816–1826'' (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1899), p. 331</ref> Jefferson dispatched twenty soldiers to the [[New Hampshire]] woods to find a bull [[moose]] for Buffon as proof of the "stature and majesty of American quadrupeds".<ref name=bullmoose>Bryson, Bill 2004. ''A Short History of Nearly Everything''. New York: Broadway Books. p 81</ref> According to Jefferson, the specimen "convinced Mr. Buffon. He promised in his next volume to set these things right."<ref>Dugatkin, Lee Alan, ''Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose: Natural History in Early America'' (University of Chicago Press, 2019), p. 99 </ref>

In ''Les époques de la nature'' (1778) Buffon discussed the origins of the [[Solar System]], speculating that the planets had been created by a [[comet]]'s collision with the Sun.<ref>[[:fr:Histoire naturelle (Buffon)|''L'Histoire Naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi'']]</ref> He also suggested that the [[Age of Earth|Earth originated]] much earlier than 4004 BC, the date determined by Archbishop [[James Ussher]]. Basing his figures on the cooling rate of [[iron]] tested at his Laboratory the [[:file:Petit Fontenet.JPG|Petit Fontenet]] at [[Montbard]], he calculated that the Earth was at least 75,000 years old. Once again, his ideas were condemned by the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]], and once again he issued a retraction to avoid further problems.<ref>Jean Stengers 1974. "Buffon et la Sorbonne" in ''Études sur le XVIIIe siecle'', ed. Roland Mortier and Hervé Hasquin. Brussels: Université de Bruxelles. pp 113–24</ref>

Buffon knew of the existence of extinct species as [[mammoth]]s or European [[Rhinoceros|rhinos]]. Some of his assumptions have inspired modern theories, such as [[continental drift]].

=== Publications ===

[[File:Buffon, Georges Louis - Leclerc, comte de – Histoire naturelle, générale et particuliére, 1763 – BEIC 8822844.jpg|thumb|upright|''Histoire naturelle, générale et particuliére''. Title page of volume 10 (1763).]]

[[File:London Courier and Evening Gazette - 1831-03-04 - p2 - Wright's Buffon's Natural History.png|thumb|March 1831 advert for "''Wright's Buffon's Natural History''" |alt=Newspaper clipping, with the text "WRIGHT'S BUFFON'S NATURAL HISTORY.—In 4 vols. most beautifully printed, and embellished with 400 Engravings on wood, price only 24s. in boards, / A NATURAL HISTORY of the GLOBE, and of Man, Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles and Insects, from the writings of Buffon, Cuvier, Lacepede, and other eminent naturalists; to which are added, Elements of Botany, by John Wright, M.Z.S. / Chiswick: Printed for Thomas Tegg, London, and sold by all Book-sellers in town and country."]]

* ''Histoire naturelle, générale et particuliére'', 1749–1767. Paris: [[Imprimerie Royale]]. 
** Volumes [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8815035 3], [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8816784 4], [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8818623 5], [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8819928 6], [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8821365 7], [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8822844 10], [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8824341 11], [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8825994 13], [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8827791 14], [https://gutenberg.beic.it/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=8829318 15].
**A four-volume English edition, ''Buffon's Natural History of the Globe, and of Man: Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Reptiles and Insects'', edited by {{ill|John Wright, FZS|lt=John Wright|qid=Q139499234}}, was published in 1831,<ref>{{cite news |title=Wright's Buffon's Natural History |work=Saint James's Chronicle |date=30 August 1831 |page=1}}</ref> with a second edition, "corrected and enlarged", in 1833.<ref>{{cite news |title=Wright's Buffon's Natural History  |work=Patriot |date=20 November 1833 |page=1}}</ref>
* ''Discours sur le style'' — delivered as speech in 1753, frequently republished

==Anthropological studies==

Buffon believed in [[monogenism]], the concept that all humanity has a single origin, and that physical differences arose from adaptation to environmental factors, including climate and diet. He speculated on the possibility that the first humans were dark-skinned Africans,<ref>Buffon, George-Louis de, ''Supplément à l'Histoire Naturelle'' (Paris, L'Imprimerie Royale, 1775), p 564</ref> but did not pinpoint the area of human origin beyond delineating it as "the most temperate climate [that] lies between the 40th and 50th degree of latitude."<ref>Gould, Stephen J, ''The Mismeasure of Man'' (New York, W.W. Norton, 1996), p. 71</ref> This geophysical band encompasses portions of Europe, North America, North Africa, Mongolia, and China.

Controversially for a European of his era, Buffon did not believe that Europe was the cradle of human civilization. Instead he stated that Japanese and Chinese culture were "of a very ancient date," and that Europe "only much later received the light from the East…it is thus in the northern countries of Asia that the stem of human knowledge grew."<ref>Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de, ''Buffon's Natural History (Barr's Buffon)'', (London, J.S. Barr, 1792), p. 213</ref> 

Buffon thought that skin color could change in a single lifetime, depending on the conditions of climate and diet.<ref>Harris, Rise of Anthropological Theory, 2001, p. 86</ref> Clarence Glacken suggests that "The environmental changes through human agency described by Buffon were those which were familiar and traditional in the history of Western civilization".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Glacken |first=Clarence J. |date=March 1960 |title=Count Buffon on Cultural Changes of the Physical Environment |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1960.tb00325.x |journal=Annals of the Association of American Geographers |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8306.1960.tb00325.x |url-access=subscription }}</ref> However, Buffon also challenged Carl Linnaeus' conceptualization of the fixed division of race. In this sense, Buffon expands his perspective on monogenism that associated these dissimilar traits and features into one larger category rather than in a fixed division. For Buffon, race in a broad sense means larger groups of people who inhabit a continent; while in a narrow sense, it is equivalent to "nation".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hudson |first=Nicholas |date=March 1996 |title=From "Nation"to "Race": The Origin of Racial Classification in Eighteenth- Century Thought |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ecs.1996.0027 |journal=Eighteenth-Century Studies |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=247–264 |doi=10.1353/ecs.1996.0027 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> With this, he implies his ambivalence in defining race by looking at specific traits to differentiate them but at the same time he rejects the idea of categorizing race in a specific fixed division. Therefore, because Buffon seems to favor in working on gerealization and marking the similarities rather than the difference in the race categorization.

==Relevance to modern biology==

[[Charles Darwin]] wrote in his preliminary historical sketch added to the third edition of ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'': "Passing over ... Buffon, with whose writings I am not familiar". Then, from the fourth edition onwards, he amended this to say that "the first author who in modern times has treated it [evolution] in a scientific spirit was Buffon. But as his opinions fluctuated greatly at different periods, and as he does not enter on the causes or means of the transformation of species, I need not here enter on details".<ref>Darwin, Charles 1861. ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'', An historical sketch: 3rd edition. [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=F381&pageseq=20 xiii]. 4th edition of 1866 [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=F385&pageseq=20 xiii].</ref> Buffon's work on degeneration, however, was immensely influential on later scholars but was overshadowed by strong moral overtones.<ref>Mason, P.H. (2010) Degeneracy at multiple levels of complexity, Biological Theory: Integrating Development, Evolution and Cognition, 5(3), 277-288.</ref>

The paradox of Buffon is that, according to [[Ernst Mayr]]:

{{blockquote|He was not an evolutionary biologist, yet he was the father of evolutionism. He was the first person to discuss a large number of evolutionary problems, problems that before Buffon had not been raised by anybody ... he brought them to the attention of the scientific world.

Except for [[Aristotle]] and Darwin, no other student of organisms [whole animals and plants] has had as far-reaching an influence.

He brought the idea of evolution into the realm of science. He developed a concept of the "unity of type", a precursor of [[comparative anatomy]]. More than anyone else, he was responsible for the acceptance of a long-time scale for the history of the earth. He was one of the first to imply that you get inheritance from your parents, in a description based on similarities between elephants and mammoths. And yet, he hindered evolution by his frequent endorsement of the immutability of species. He provided a criterion of species, fertility among members of a species, that was thought impregnable.<ref name="Mayrp330"/>}}

Buffon wrote about the concept of [[struggle for existence]].<ref>{{cite journal | last=Zirkle | first=Conway | author-link=Conway Zirkle | date=25 April 1941 | title=Natural Selection before the ''Origin of Species'' | journal=[[Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society]] | volume=84 | issue=1 | publisher=[[American Philosophical Society]] | place=Philadelphia | pages =71–123 | jstor  =984852 }}</ref> He developed a system of [[heredity]] which was similar to Darwin's hypothesis of [[pangenesis]].<ref>Hull, David L. (1988). ''Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science''. University of Chicago Press. p. 86. {{ISBN|0-226-36051-2}} "As Darwin was to discover many years later, Buffon had devised a system of heredity not all that different from his own theory of pangenesis."</ref> Commenting on Buffon's views, Darwin stated, "If Buffon had assumed that his organic molecules had been formed by each separate unit throughout the body, his view and mine would have been very closely similar."<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Zirkle | first1=Conway | author-link=Conway Zirkle | year=1935 | title=The Inheritance of Acquired Characters and the Provisional Hypothesis of Pangenesis | journal=[[The American Naturalist]] | volume=69 | issue=724 | pages=417–445 | doi=10.1086/280617 | bibcode=1935ANat...69..417Z | s2cid=84729069 }}</ref>

"Buffon asked most all of the questions that science has since been striving to answer," the historian [[Otis Fellows]] wrote in 1970. 

{{blockquote| His glory lies in what he prepared for his successors: bold and seminal views on the common characters of life's origin, laws of geographical distribution, a geological record of the earth's evolution, extinction of old species, the successive appearance of new species, the unity of the human race.<ref>Fellows, Otis, ''From Voltaire to la Nouvelle Critique: Problems and Personalities'' (Geneva, Libraire Droz, 1970), p. 25 </ref>}}

== Legacy ==

* [[Buffon (crater)]], a lunar impact crater located on the southern hemisphere of the far side of the Moon.
* [[Lycée Buffon]], a secondary school in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.
* {{ill|Rue Buffon (Paris)|fr}}, a street bordering the [[Jardin des plantes|Jardin des Plantes]] in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.
* Rue Buffon (Dijon)<!-- {{Q18718680}} -->,<ref>{{Cite web |title=La rue Buffon, Dijon |url=https://www.monnuage.fr/point-d-interet/la-rue-buffon-a104424%20rue%20Buffon,%20Dijon%5B%5D |website=www.monnuage.fr}}</ref> a street in [[Dijon]], France.
* An asteroid was named (7420) Buffon.

He has been credited with being the first to estimate the age of the Earth using experimental data, though [[Isaac Newton]] had already done so.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Simms |first=D. L. |date=2004 |title=Newton's Contribution to the Science of Heat |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00033790210123810 |journal=[[Annals of Science]] |volume=61 |issue=1 |pages=33–77 |doi=10.1080/00033790210123810 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Merrill |first=Ronald T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=auZaEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA86 |title=Our Magnetic Earth: The Science of Geomagnetism |date=2010 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0-226-52053-7 |location=Chicago |pages=86}}</ref>

== Works ==

Buffon, ''Œuvres'', ed. S. Schmitt and C. Crémière, Paris: Gallimard, 2007.

'''Complete works'''
* Vol 1. ''Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roy''. (1749). Texte établi, introduit et annoté par Stéphane Schmitt avec la collaboration de Cédric Crémière, Paris: Honoré Champion, 2007, 1376 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-1601-1}})
* Vol 2. (1749), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008, 808 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-1729-2}})
* Vol 3. (1749), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2009, 776 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-1730-8}})
* Vol 4. (1753), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2010, 864 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-1928-9}})
* Vol 5. (1755), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2010, 536 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-2057-5}})
* Vol 6. (1756), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2011, 504 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-2150-3}})
* Vol. 7. (1758), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2011, 544 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-2239-5}})
* Vol. 8. (1760), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2014, 640 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-2615-7}})
* Vol. 9. (1761), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2016, 720 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-2994-3}})
* Vol. 10. (1763), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2017, 814 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-3456-5}})
* Vol. 11. (1764), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2018, 724 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-4730-5}})
* Vol. 12. (1764), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2018, 810 p. ({{ISBN|978-2-7453-4732-9}})
* Vol. 13. (1765), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2019, 887 p. 
* Vol. 14. (1768), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2020, 605 p. 
* Vol. 15. (1767), Paris: Honoré Champion, 2021, 764 p. 

<gallery class=center mode=nolines widths=180 heights=180>
File:Buffon-2.jpg|alt=|1774 edition of ''Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière''
File:Buffon-1-2.jpg|alt=|Frontispiece of a 1774 edition of ''Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière''
File:Buffon-1-3.jpg|alt=|Table of contents of a 1774 edition of ''Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière''
File:Buffon-2-1.jpg|alt=|1792 English translation of ''Buffon's Natural History''
File:Buffon-2-2.jpg|alt=|Title page of a 1792 English translation of ''Buffon's Natural History''
File:Buffon-2-3.jpg|alt=|Table of contents page of a 1792 English translation of ''Buffon's Natural History''
File:Buffon-2-4.jpg|alt=|Preface for a 1792 English translation of ''Buffon's Natural History''
</gallery>

==See also==

* [[Buffon's needle problem|Buffon's needle]]
* [[Rejection sampling]]
* [[Scientific Revolution]]
* [[Suites à Buffon]]

==References==
{{Reflist|33em}}

==External links==
{{EB1911 poster|Buffon, George Louis Leclerc, Comte de}}
* {{Commons category-inline}}
* {{Wikiquote-inline}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=42924}}
* {{Librivox author |id=11522}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Georges Louis Leclerc}}
* {{in lang|fr}} The Buffon project: {{lang|fr|[http://www.buffon.cnrs.fr L'histoire naturelle]}}
:* The same, in English: [https://web.archive.org/web/20171115022149/http://www.buffon.cnrs.fr/?lang=en ''L'histoire naturelle'']
* [https://www.boringworld.org/2021/03/buffon-hypothesis.html Buffon's Hypothesis about the Origin of the Earth ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419143131/https://www.boringworld.org/2021/03/buffon-hypothesis.html |date=19 April 2023 }} 
* [http://www.thegreatcat.org/cats-enlightenment-part-6-naturalists-views-domestic-cat/ Buffon's View of Domestic Cats]
* [http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/b16/buffon_cont.html Digital text Kyoto University] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001051257/http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/b16/buffon_cont.html |date=1 October 2011 }}
* {{MacTutor Biography|id=Buffon}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120314070300/http://www.ansp.org/museum/jefferson/otherPages/degeneracy-1.php Buffon's American Degeneracy, from The Academy of Natural Sciences]
* [http://collections.swco.ttu.edu/handle/10605/57 William Smellie's English Translation of Buffon's ''Natural History, General and Particular'', 3rd Edition]
* {{in lang|fr}} [http://athena.unige.ch/athena/buffon/buf_disc.html ''Discours sur le Style'' – at athena.unige.ch]{{Dead link|date=December 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
*[http://sdei.senckenberg.de/index/index.php?befehl=about Gaedike, R.; Groll, E. K. & Taeger, A. 2012: Bibliography of the entomological literature from the beginning until 1863 : online database - version 1.0 - Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut.]
*[http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/cdm/search/collection/darwin/searchterm/Buffon!Georges/field/title!title/mode/all!all/conn/and!and/order/nosort A collection of high-resolution scans of animal illustrations from several books by Buffon] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201006202338/http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/cdm/search/collection/darwin/searchterm/Buffon!Georges/field/title!title/mode/all!all/conn/and!and/order/nosort |date=6 October 2020 }}, from the [[Linda Hall Library]]
* Buffon's [http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/cdm/ref/collection/earththeory/id/32722 ''Histoire naturelle des époches de la nature''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200821152328/http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/cdm/ref/collection/earththeory/id/32722 |date=21 August 2020 }}, (this ed. published as ''Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, avec la description du cabinet du roy, suppl. vol. 5.'' in 1778) - digital facsimile from the [[Linda Hall Library]]
* {{cite journal|author=Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon |author-mask=0 |title=Dissertation sur les couleurs accidentelles |journal=Mémoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences &mdash;- Année 1743 |pages=147–158 |url=http://www.academie-sciences.fr/activite/archive/dossiers/Buffon/Buffon_pdf/p147_158_vol3541m.pdf |year=1746 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150614135146/http://www.academie-sciences.fr/activite/archive/dossiers/Buffon/Buffon_pdf/p147_158_vol3541m.pdf |archive-date=2015-06-14 }}

{{Académie française Seat 1}}
{{Age of Enlightenment}}
{{Natural history}}
{{Historical definitions of race}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc De}}
[[Category:1707 births]]
[[Category:1788 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Montbard]]
[[Category:18th-century French naturalists]]
[[Category:French ornithologists]]
[[Category:18th-century French zoologists]]

[[Category:People from the Province of Burgundy]]
[[Category:French Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:University of Angers (pre-1793) alumni]]
[[Category:Proto-evolutionary biologists]]
[[Category:Members of the Académie Française]]
[[Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Contributors to the Encyclopédie (1751–1772)]]
[[Category:Counts of Buffon]]
[[Category:French science writers]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
[[Category:18th-century French mathematicians]]
[[Category:Founder fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh]]
[[Category:18th-century French male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:National Museum of Natural History (France) people]]
[[Category:International members of the American Philosophical Society]]
[[Category:French fellows of the Royal Society]]