This is the system that great philosopher has given us of generation, and I shall leave it to the opinion of the reader whether that of the ancients, which he rejects, can be more obscure or more absurd than his; nevertheless, his system has been followed by most of the learned. Harvey has not only adopted the ideas of Aristotle, but has added new ones of the same kind. As this system of generation is of the same kind as the rest of Aristotle's philosophy, where form and matter are the grand principles; where the vegetative and sensitive are the active beings in Nature; and where final causes are real objects; I am not surprised that it has been received by scholastic authors; but it is astonishing that so able a physician and observer of Nature as Harvey was, should be carried away with the stream, while every physician followed the opinion of Hippocrates and Galen; which we shall explain in order. We must not, however, imbibe a disadvantageous idea of Aristotle from the above exposition of his System of Generation. It would be like judging of Descartes by his Treatise on Man. The explanations which these two philosophers give of the formation of the foetus should not be considered as complete systems on the subject of generation; they are rather general consequences drawn from their philosophical principles. _END OF THE SECOND VOLUME._ Transcriber Note Non-standard capitalization has been retained. Hyphenation was standardized. All obvious typographical corrections made. The following list of changes were also made: Page Change ==== =================================================== 47 Added missing endquote first paragraph 50 Harleim was changed to Haarlem 58 "which" was added: " ... causes [which] agitates and disturbs it ..." 155 Added missing endquote first paragraph 225 Added missing endquote first paragraph 246 Timaeo was changed to Timæus. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Buffon's Natural History, Volume II (of 10), by Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon