KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

20 Theory of the Organism
cated to new particles of matter vitally united to the living plant, in a like
continued organization conformable to that sort of plants.
Newtonian Biology
The preformation theory, which forsaw no production of
organic systems after the first creation, could cope even less well
with the continual reproduction of such systems. The encased
germs did not reproduce; they simply expanded. The theories of
identical and extended reproduction of organic systems proposed as
alternatives to preformation were called at the time "epigenesis";
and this term has been adopted by contemporary historiography of
science even though these theories have little or nothing to do with
the Aristotelian theory of generation for which William Harvey, its
last important proponent, introduced the name in the middle of the
17th century. The first alternative theories of the 1740's were in fact
pangenesis theories, developed by Buffon and Maupertuis, which
harked back to the atomistic theories of the 17th century (Gassendi,
Highmore, Charleton) or perhaps directly to Lucretius and Hippocrates
but were enriched by organic molecules and by attractive
forces acting between the particles of matter. Pangenesis explained
generation through the mixing of the seeds of both parents. The seed
in turn consisted of particles, taken from and representing each of
the parts of the body, which joined together either spontaneously or
under the influence of the maternal organism to form a germ,
which otherwise was quite similar to the homunculus of the preformation
theory. Pangenesis had little difficulty with species hybrids
or with atomism and was independent of theories of the history of
the earth. Furthermore, at least in Buffon's version, it was founded
on the concept of the reproduction of an organic system. For Buffon,
nourishment, growth, and propagation were three kinds of general
reproduction accomplished by distribution and assimilation of particles.
When Buffon for instance says: "Everything, that can be, is,"
he means that all viable forms of organization that result from the
combinatory possibilities of organic molecules under the given geological
and climatic conditions actually exist; and vice versa only the
actually given forms are really possible. This holds in principle
whether the molecules happen to get together in the appropriate