 Buffon’s development of a broad theoretical inquiry into natural science within the framework of a state-sponsored institutional structure warrants the special attention given here to his contribution in the history of evolutionary theory. These included: (1) his methodological revolution in the epistemology of the natural-historical sciences; (2) his analysis and proposed solution to the problem of animal and plant generation; (3) his reconceptualization of the concept of biological species; (4) his bio-geographical approach to the issues of animal distribution and variation; (5) his renewed theoretical attention to issues of cosmology and the “theory of the earth;” and finally (6), his concluding synthesis of earth and life history in the grand naturalistic account publishes as his monumental Les (originally Des) Époques de la Nature (Epochs of Nature) of 1778–9, which provided a model for similar syntheses of the nineteenth century. Through this combination of several lines of earlier inquiry, Buffon posed a series of theoretical questions that were further explored by important successors associated with the Paris Museum in the nineteenth century and in natural history more generally.