Buffon maintained that degeneration had particularly adverse consequences in the New World. He believed America to be both colder and wetter than Europe . This climate limited the number of species in the New World and prompted a decline in size and vigor among the animals which did survive. Buffon also applied these principles to the people of the New World. He wrote in the "Histoire Naturelle" that the indigenous people lacked the ability to feel strong emotion for others . For Buffon, these individuals were incapable of love as well as desire.