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Full Idea
I confess I cannot well conceive how from matter, barely put into motion and left to itself, there could emerge such curious fabricks as the bodies of men and perfect animals, and more admirably contrived parcels of matter, as seeds of living creatures.
Gist of Idea
I don't see how mere moving matter can lead to the bodies of men and animals, and especially their seeds
Source
Robert Boyle (The Sceptical Chemist [1661], p.569), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles
Book Ref
Alexander,Peter: 'Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles' [CUP 1985], p.60
A Reaction
This is here to show that one of the most brilliant intellects of the seventeenth century thought carefully about this question and couldn't answer it. Natural selection really was a rather clever idea.
| 15964 | Boyle's secondary qualities are not illusory, or 'in the mind' [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 15965 | Boyle attacked a contemporary belief that powers were occult things [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 16735 | In the 17th century, 'disposition' usually just means the spatial arrangement of parts [Boyle, by Pasnau] |
| 15962 | Boyle's term 'texture' is not something you feel, but is unobservable structures of particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 15952 | The corpuscles just have shape, size and motion, which explains things without 'sympathies' or 'forces' [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 15972 | The corpuscular theory allows motion, but does not include forces between the particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 16034 | Form is not a separate substance, but just the manner, modification or 'stamp' of matter [Boyle] |
| 15957 | Essential definitions show the differences that discriminate things, and make them what they are [Boyle] |
| 15960 | Explanation is deducing a phenomenon from some nature better known to us [Boyle] |
| 15953 | To cite a substantial form tells us what produced the effect, but not how it did it [Boyle] |
| 16736 | Explanation is generally to deduce it from something better known, which comes in degrees [Boyle] |
| 16737 | The best explanations get down to primary basics, but others go less deep [Boyle] |
| 15961 | I don't see how mere moving matter can lead to the bodies of men and animals, and especially their seeds [Boyle] |