Fleas, so naturalists say, 

 Have smaller fleas that on them prey. 

 And these have smaller still to bite 'em, 

 And so proceed ad infinitum. % 



Georges Buffon was an inconsistent opponent of the 

 preformation theory. He objected to the theory of "enclosing" 

 and considered that "the organism is something organized in 

 all its parts, developing from an infinite number of similar 

 figures and similar parts into an aggregate of embryos or 

 small embryos or small individuals of its kind." Buffon 

 reached this conclusion by considering the vegetative repro- 

 duction of plants and the results of Trembley's experiments 

 on hydra, which showed the possibility of restoring the 

 whole individual from any part of the polyp. Buffon 's assump- 

 tion about the existence of "living particles," from which 

 complicated organisms are composed, is considered an echo 

 of Leibnitz's doctrine on monads. The embryo, according to 

 Buffon, is built from particles and nutrients which are 

 distributed in it according to some internal form or model 

 ( moule interieur ) . This opinion represents an attempt to 

 reconcile preformation (presence of a preexisting internal 

 model) with epigenesis (gradual formation of the developing 

 organism from the nutrients received from without) . 



Buffon' s opinions were widely known to readers because 

 of the great popularity of his works , which were written in 

 lively and picturesque language. Because of their 

 inconsistencies, however, Buffon 's opinions did not show the 

 essential clash between the ideas of preformation and 

 epigenesis. The theory of preformation along with the 

 hypothesis of "enclosing" of the embryos remained predominant 

 to the end of the eighteenth century, despite K. F. Wolff's 

 works which had already struck a shattering blow. 



8. (Ed.: "On Poetry" (1733) . Actually a well-known ditty by 

 Jonathan Swift . J 



9. Pushkin called Buffon "the great pictorialist of nature." 

 "The style of his blooming always will be an example of 

 descriptive prose" (A. S. Pushkin, POLNOE SOB RAN IE 

 SOCHINENII (Complete collected works) in 6 volumes, 

 (Moscow, 1936), v. VI, p. 24). 



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