Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
"...all the animals might be regarded as constituting but a single family... one could say... that the ape is of the family of man... that man and ape have a common origin: that, in fact, all the families, among plants as well as animals, have come from a common stock, and that all animals are descended from a single animal, from which have sprung in the course of time... all other races of animals"...