178 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



assimilating all the organic molecules contained in 

 their food. These superabundant organic molecules, 

 which are unable to penetrate into, and thus nourish, 

 the animal organism, strive to unite themselves with 

 certain particles of inert alimentary matter, and thus, 

 as during the process of putrefaction, form certain 

 organized bodies. Such is the mode of origin of Tape- 

 worms, of Ascarides, of Flukes.' . . . 



BufFon, not always logical and consistent, was noto- 

 riously a bold and untrammelled thinker, though he held 

 a very inferior place as an actual observer. Generaliza- 

 tion was more to his taste than the laborious and less 

 inviting occupation of acquiring the necessary data; 

 and he did not always restrict himself to theories which 

 reposed on a solid basis of fact. This doctrine of his, 

 which we have just quoted, is a strange mixture of 

 Platonic, Leibnitzian, and materialistic philosophy. His 

 ^ moule interieur ' is represented as an actual power, 

 corresponding in some respects with the Platonic 

 ^ Idea ; ' whilst his ' molecules organiques ' are in 

 other respects similar to the ^Monads' of Leibnitz — 

 though, like the vov^ of Anaxagoras, they are repre- 

 sented as movers of matter, rather than as essential 

 and sole constituents of a self-moving matter. The 

 notion of Needham, however, was much more assimi- 

 lable with our own doctrines. Believing in the influ- 

 ence of ^external conditions' on putrefying organic 

 matter, as Needham did, his postulation of a single 

 active ^ force vegetative ' was a superfluity — a remnant 



