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 note- 



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1 



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 m 



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 

 arid sole constituents of a self-moving matter. The 

 notion of Needham, however, was much more assimi- 



4 



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 







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