THE PROCESS OF REPRODUCTION. 4G1 



are certain animalcules contained in the seed of 

 the male, which are the main agents in the work 

 of reproduction. This system ascribes almost every- 

 thing to the male, as the one last mentioned does 

 to the female. Finally, we have the system of 

 Buffon; the famous hypothesis of organic mole- 

 cules. That philosopher asserted that he found, 

 by the aid of the microscope, all nature full of 

 moving globules, which he conceived to be, not 

 animals as Leeuwenhoek imagined, but bodies capa- 

 ble of producing, by their combination, either 

 animals or vegetables, in short, all organized bodies. 

 These globules he called organic molecules. And 

 if we inquire how these organic molecules, proceed- 

 ing from all parts of the two parents, unite into 

 a whole, as perfect as either of the progenitors, 

 Buffon answers, that this is the effect of an interior 

 mould ; that is, of a system of internal laws and 

 tendencies which determine the form of the result 

 as an external mould determines the shape of the 

 cast. 



An admirer of Buffon, who has well shown the 

 untenable character of this system, has urged, as a 

 kind of apology for the promulgation of the hypo- 

 thesis 14 , that at the period when its author wrote, 

 he could not present his facts with any hope of 

 being attended to, if he did not connect them by 

 some common tie, some dominant idea which might 

 gratify the mind; and that, acting under this 

 13 Bourdon, p. 219. M Ih. p. 221. 



