 The Epochs also offered a schema for a historical sequence of forms in a series of six major “epochs” that were given precise dates of duration. This begins with the origin of the earth from a cooled star, and then describes the beginning of living nature with marine life and plants in the early stages of the earth’s history, terminating with present forms His account even suggested a naturalistic origin of human beings, although this issue is left vague. Humankind appears, without explanation in the text, in a non-paradisal state in the northern latitudes of Eurasia, surrounded by ferocious animals, earthquakes and floods, and in a primitive social condition that required collaboration for survival. Buffon’s liberal use of a form of spontaneous generation that allowed for the origin of even major animal groups from the clumping together of organic molecules as the earth cooled, rendered the actual derivation of forms from previous forms unnecessary. In several respects, the development of genuine transformist theories by Buffon’s successors required a much more restricted use of the possibility of spontaneous generation.