42. Buffon (1707–1788), who wrote in a particularly magnificent style, began publishing l’Histoire naturelle in 1749. It went through a number of editions in rapid succession and was widely heralded as the great work of the century on all phases of natural history. Over a period of years Buffon continued to produce volume after volume of his natural history, and much of it was incorporated into the Encyclopedia. For a comment on the striking parallels between Buffon’s theory of biological continuity and d’Alembert’s application of the notion of continuity to all thought and phenomena, see [Part I,] n. 59.