Page 35 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR?
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a general diffusion of germs of life, originally brought into
being at some primeval epoch.
For the latter view, the teaching of Bonnet, following
upon that ofBuffon, was chiefly responsible; while Buffon's
ideas are reminiscent of the ancient system ascribed to
Anaxagoras. According to this last, the universe was be-
lieved to be formed of various elements, as numerous as its
different substances. Gold was supposed to be formed of
particles of gold, a muscle, a bone, a heart, to be formed of
particles of muscle, of bone, of heart. Buffon taught that a
grain of sea-salt is a cube composed of an infinite number
of other cubes, and that there can be no doubt that the
primary constituent parts of this salt are also cubes, which
are beyond the powers of our eyes and even of our
imagination.
1
This was an experimental fact, says Bechamp, and was
the basis of the system of crystallography of Hauy.
Buffon argued in the same strain that "in like manner
that we see a cube ofsea-salt to be composed ofother cubes,
so we see that an elm is but a composite of other little
elms."
2
Bonnet's ideas were somewhat similar; the central
theme of his teaching being the universal diffusion of
living germs "capable of development only when they
meet with suitable matrices or bodies of the same species
fitted to hold them, to cherish them and make them sprout
—it is the dissemination or panspermy that, in sowing
germs on all sides, makes of the air, the water, the earth,
and all solid bodies, vast and numerous magazines where
Nature has deposited her chief riches." He maintained
that "the prodigous smallness of the germs prevents them
from being attacked by the causes that bring about the
dissolution of the mixtures. They enter into the interior of
plants and of animals, they even become component parts
of them, and when these composites undergo the law of

1
Les Microzymas, p. 30.
2
See Ire partie; Oeuvres d'Histoire Naturelle de Bonnet; V. pp. 83-86. Neu-
chatel, 1779.