 For this reason, Buffon was conceptually required to attribute some new powers to matter to account for vital action. In pursuing this option, he broke with universal mechanism and the assumption of the passivity of matter that was an intrinsic component of the mechanical philosophy and some interpretations of Newtonianism (see above  Section 2.3).  There are also important similarities of his new “vitalism” to that found in Leibnizian discussions such as was expounded in the Institutions de Physique of Émilie Du Châtelet in 1740 (Sloan 2019). To give a plausible account of embryological formation, vital properties therefore had to be attributed to a specific kind of matter confined to living beings, the organic molecules, which had their own inherent dynamic and specifying properties.