SECT. 3] 



AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 



203 



As for the supporters of epigenesis, they were few, but they 

 included Descartes, de Maupertuis, Antoine Maitre-Jan and John 

 Turberville Needham. Von Haller affords some evidence against the 

 identification of epigenesis with vitaHsm and preformation with 

 mechanism, for he says, "Various authors have taught that the parts 

 of the human body are formed by a mechanism depending on general 

 laws (i.e. laws not simply of biological jurisdiction) or by the virtue 

 of some ferment, or by rest and cold making crusts out of the different 

 juices, or in other ways. All these (mechanical) systems have some 

 resemblance to that of M. Wolff". Haller also speaks always of 

 Wolff's vis essentialis as "blind". Minor writers on the epigenetic side 

 were Tauvry, Welsh, 

 Dartiguelongue, Bou- 

 ger, Drelincurtius and 

 Mazin. After 1 750 

 C. F. Wolff brought 

 an abiding victory to 

 their opinion. 



Some maintained a 

 quite independent po- 

 sition, such as Buffon, 

 who welded together 

 an epigenetic theory 



of fertilisation with a ^^S- 12. Dalenpatius' drawings of human spermatozoa. 



preformationist theory of embryogeny. Pascal (not the great Jan- 

 senist) put forward the chemical view that fertilisation consisted of 

 a combination between the acid semen of the male and the "lixivious " 

 semen of the female, no doubt because in chemistry acids were 

 regarded as male and alkalies female. Claude Perrault and Connor 

 also suggested that the formation of the embryo was a fermentation 

 set up in the egg by the spermatic animalcule. In this they were 

 following the example of van Helmont, who had originally suggested 

 such a theory. In 1 763 Jacobi discovered how to fertilise fish eggs 

 with milt; a practical matter which had a good deal of influence on 

 biological theory. Launai alone still held to the Aristotelian con- 

 ception of form and matter. 



There is no need here to do more than glance at the spontaneous 

 generation controversy itself, for it has always been well known in 

 the history of biology, especially in connection with the subsequent 



