 The introduction of the concept of “vital” matter by Buffon, even with restrictions on its actions, represents an important development in the history of the life sciences of this period. It broke with the uniformity of matter assumed by the Newtonian, Gassendist, and Cartesian traditions, and in a limited way it positioned Buffon at the opening of the “vitalist” revolution which initiated the first reflections on genuine species transformism, even though Buffon himself never moved into this new domain (Reill 2005: chp. 1).