Buffon’s theory respecting universal matter, generation, and nutrition,
so much resembles what was taught by some of the ancients, that it is
difficult not to think that his ideas drew their origin from that first
school. It appears indeed, that he had attentively read the ancients,
and knew how to value them. He says himself, that “the ancients
understood much better, and made a greater progress in the natural
history of animals and minerals, than we have done. They abounded more
in real observations; and we ought to have made much better advantage of
their illustrations and remarks.” Yet Buffon does not seem to have
perceived the analogy which every where reigns between his system and
that of the ancients.
Anaxagoras thought that bodies were composed of small, similar, or
homogeneous particles; that those bodies, however, admitted a certain
quantity of small particles that were heterogene, or of another kind;
but that to constitute any body to be of a particular species, it
sufficed, that it was composed of a great number of small particles,
similar and constitutive of that species. Different bodies were masses
of particles similar among themselves; dissimilar, however, relatively
to those of any other body, or to the mass of small particles belonging
to a different species. Thus, the ancients taught, that blood was formed
of many drops or particles, each of which had blood in it; that a bone
was formed of many small bones, which from their extreme littleness
evaded our view; and these similar parts they called ομοιομερειας
_similaritates_. Likewise, that nothing was properly liable to
generation, or corruption, to birth, or to death; generations of every
kind, being no other than an assemblage of small particles constituent
of the kind; and the destruction of a body being no other than the
disunion of many small bodies of the same sort, which always preserving
a natural tendency to reunite, produce again, by their conjunction with
other similar particles, other bodies of the same species. Vegetation
and nutrition were but means employed by nature for the continuation of
beings; thus, the different juices of the earth being composed of a
collection of innumerable small particles intermixed, constituting the
different parts of a tree or flower for example, take, according to the
law of nature, different arrangements; and by the motion originally
impressed upon them, proceed till, arriving at the places destined and
proper for them, they collect themselves and halt, to form all the
different parts of that tree or flower; in the same manner as many small
imperceptible leaves go to the formation of the leaves we see, many
little parts of the fruits of different kinds to the composition of
those which we eat; and so of the rest. The same, with respect to the
nutrition of animals. The bread we eat, and the other aliments we take,
turn themselves, according to the ancients, into hair, veins, arteries,
nerves, and all the other parts of our body; because there are, in those
aliments, the constituent parts of blood, nerves, bones, hair, &c.
which, uniting with one another, make themselves by their coalition
perceptible, which they were not before, because of their infinite
littleness.
Empedocles believed, that matter had in it a living principle, a subtile
active fire, which put all in motion; and this Buffon calls, by another
name, “organized matter, always active; or animated organic matter.”
According to Empedocles, “this matter was distributed through the four
elements, among which it had an uniting force to bind them, and a
separating to put them asunder; for the small parts either mutually
embraced, or repelled one another; whence nothing in reality perished,
but every thing was in perpetual vicissitude.”
Empedocles had a sentiment, which Buffon follows, in the same terms;
where he says, that “the sexes contain all the small parts analogous to
the body of an animal, and necessary to its production.”
Plotinus, investigating what might be the reason of this sympathy and
attraction in nature, discovered it to proceed from such a “harmony and
assimilation of the parts, as bound them together when they met,” or
repelled them when they were dissimilar; he says, that it is the variety
of these assimilations that concurs to the formation of an animal; and
calls this binding, or dissolving force, “the magic of the universe.”
Anaxagoras thought as Buffon does, that there is no preexistent seed,
involving infinite numbers of the same kind one within another; but an
ever active organic matter, always ready so to adapt itself, as to
assimilate, and render other things conformable to that wherein it
resides. The species of animals and vegetables can never therefore
exhaust themselves; but as long as an individual subsists, the species
will be always new. It is as extensive now as it was at the beginning,
and all will subsist of themselves, till they are annihilated by the
Creator.
It would be easy to show, that in morals and politics, as in physics,
the most eminent moderns have said nothing new. Hobbes has advanced
nothing, but what he found in the writings of the Grecian and Latin
philosophers; and above all, in those of Epicurus. Montesquieu also
assumes from the ancients the principles of his system; and Machiavel
those of his politics from Aristotle, though we have attributed to his
genius the whole honour of having invented them. But these discussions
would detain the reader too long; we hasten therefore to another field
of contemplation, not less fruitful of testimony, in support of the
position, that the most celebrated philosophers among the moderns have
taken what they advance from the works of the ancients.
[318] Perhaps this principle derives further illustration from
scripture. “In the _beginning_ was the _Word_.” John i, 1. ED.
* * * * *
_For the Table Book._