KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Decline of Preformation 19
studied it around 1700) could achieve the significance that it actually
acquired in the course of the 18th century.
The term "reproduction" was introduced in the early 18th
century to denote the regeneration of lost or mutilated organs in the
salamander and other amphibians and retained this meaning up to
the beginning of the 19th century. It was apparently Buffon who first
extended the meaning to include propagation as well. For Buffon
"reproduction" was the most general common trait of animals and
plants. In the second volume of his Histoire naturelle after a discussion
of the commonalities of animal and vegetable kingdoms (Chapt.
1), he takes up "Reproduction en générale" (Chapt. 2) before he
turns to the particular kinds of reproduction: "De la nutrition & de
developpement" (Chapt. 3) and "De la génération" (Chapt. 4). His
point of departure for the entire discussion is of course the regenerative
capacities of the polyp. 13
The development of the concept of the organism as a self
reproducing system was initiated by John Locke in the second edition
of his Essay on Human Understanding (1694). In Chapter 27 of
the second book, in an introductory passage on the identity of the
person, he attempts to determine the difference between the identity
over time of a mechanical aggregate or "mass" and that of an
organic body. The identity of an aggregate consists in that of its
parts and thus ultimately in the identity of its component atoms.
The identity of an organism consists, on the other hand, in that of
the process of the continual reproduction of the parts of the system
by the system. Such as system has two levels of organization: the
particles of matter are organized into organic parts, and these are
in turn organized into organisms which are able to produce
("frame") and reproduce ("continue") the parts: 14
We must therefore consider wherein an oak differs from a mass of matter,
and that seems to be in this, that the one is only the cohesion of particles of
matter any how united, the other such a disposition of them as constitutes
the parts of an oak; and such an organization of those parts as is fit to
receive and distribute nourishment, so as to continue and frame the wood,
bark, and leaves, &c., of an oak, in which consists the vegetable life. That
being then one plant which has such an organization of parts in one
coherent body, partaking of one common life, it continues to be the same
plant as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communi-
13 Cf. Buffon Oeuvres philosophiques, pp. 233-56; on the concept of reproduction
cf. Jacob, Logic of Life, chapt. 2
14 Locke, Essay, II, 27, §6 (emphasis PM).