THE BEGINNINGS OF IIFE. 175 



much influenced by his views, preferred giving them 

 a much more materialistic acceptation. BufFon's ^ mole- 

 cules organiques' may be said to replace the 'force vege- 

 tative ' of Needham. His views on this subject are so 

 interesting that we shall quote them somewhat fully. 

 'My researches and experiments upon organic mole- 

 cules/ he says^, 'demonstrate that there are no pre- 

 existing germs, and at the same time they prove that 

 the generation of animals and of plants does not take 

 place after any single fashion. There are, perhaps, 

 as many beings, whether animal or vegetable, that are 

 produced by a fortuitous concourse of organic molecules, 

 as there are animals or vegetables which can reproduce 

 themselves by a constant succession of generations. 



' The organic molecules — always active, always per- 

 sistent — belong as much to plants as to animals. They 

 penetrate brute (dead) matter; they excite changes 

 within it ; they influence it in all its parts ;. they make 

 it serve as the basis for an organized tissue, of which 

 these living molecules are the only active principles. 

 They are only under the subjection of a single power, 

 which, though passive, directs their movement and 

 fixes their position. This power is the mould, or inti- 

 mate pattern, of the particular organized body. The 

 living molecules which the animal or the plant draws 

 from its nutritive materials, or from its sap, incorporate 

 themselves with all parts of the material mould ; they 

 carry with them the powers of growth and life ; they 

 * Supplement, ' Histoire de I'Homme,' 1778, t. viii. 



