Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Contributors -- Introduction -- 1. aristotle against the pangenesists -- 2. galen's two-seed theory and avicenna's synthesis -- 3. the beginnings of modern generation science -- The Limits of Observation and the Limits of Knowledge -- The Problem of Cause -- The Limits of the Mechanistic Program -- The Demise of Substance Metaphysics -- Species, Essence, and Individuals in the Debate over Inheritance -- I The Dawning of a New Era -- 1 The Comparative Study of Animal Development -- 1. introduction -- 2. aristotle on the study of animal generation -- 3. william harvey and paduan aristotelianism -- 4. harvey's aristotle -- 5. harvey at work on generation -- 6. harvey on the goal-directed nature of generation -- 7. teleology in de conceptione -- 8. conclusion -- 2 Monsters, Nature, and Generation from the Renaissance to the Early Modern Period -- 1. the limitations of teratological explanation in the sixteenth century -- 2. the split between medicine and theology and the rise of embryology -- 3. the emergence of laws of nature -- 4. conclusion -- II The Cartesian Program -- 3 Descartes's Experimental Method and the Generation of Animals -- 1. the nature of seed -- 2. influences on descartes -- 3. descartes cracks some eggs -- 4. descartes's final attempt -- 5. conclusion -- 4 Imagination and the Problem of Heredity in Mechanist Embryology -- 1. introduction -- 2. the aristotelian background -- 3. imagination as a formative faculty in premechanist embryology -- 4. descartes: fetal development as the achilles' heel of mechanism -- 5. the imagination in cartesian physiology and psychology -- 6. gassendi and malebranche on species reproduction -- 7. teleology, mechanism, and the survival of functions -- 8. conclusion -- III The Gassendian Alternative -- 5 The Soul as Vehicle for Genetic Information.

1. introduction -- 2. setting the stage for preformationism: aristotelian and early modern views -- 3. gassendi's account -- 4. the immaterial soul and heredity: the letter to feyens -- 6 Atoms and Minds in Walter Charleton's Theory of Animal Generation -- 1. introduction -- 2. the metaphysics of generation and corruption -- 3. vital heat, vital spirits, and animal generation -- 4. emergent properties and the problem of the origin of minds -- 5. conclusion -- IV Second-Wave Mechanism and The Return of Animal Souls, 1650-1700 -- 7 Animal Generation and Substance in Sennert and Leibniz -- 1. introduction -- 2. atoms and souls -- 3. atomism and mechanism -- 4. reintroducing substantial forms -- 5. conclusion -- 8 Spontaneous and Sexual Generation in Conway's Principles -- 1. introduction -- 2. conway's ontology -- 3. spontaneous generation as an argument for monism -- 4. conway's account of sexual generation -- 9 Malebranche on Animal Generation -- introduction -- 1. the cartesian program -- 2. malebranche's main argument for preexistence -- 3. preexistence and microscopy -- 10 Animal as Category -- 1. against the schools -- 2. against the cartesians -- 3. against leibniz -- V Between Epigenesis and Preexistence: The Debate Intensifies, 1700-1770 -- 11 Explanation and Demonstration in the Haller-Wolff Debate -- 1. the haller-wolff debate: preexistence versus epigenesis? -- 2. explanation and description in theories of generation -- 3. haller and wolff on descartes -- 4. explanation, experiment, causes -- 12 Soul Power -- 1. premises for a phantom embryology -- 2. the soul as architect of the body -- 3. masculine and feminine -- 4. between epigenesis and preformation -- 5. the transmission of ideas -- 6. ratio and ratiocinatio -- 7. after stahl: burgmann's critique of stahlian medicine -- 8. pious reactions against mechanism: longolius and hartmann.

9. conclusion: was stahl a pietist physician? -- 13 Charles Bonnet's Neo-Leibnizian Theory of Organic Bodies -- 1. bonnet's reception of leibniz's model -- 2. organic order in la palingenesie -- 3. the machines of nature reshaped -- 4. recasting leibnizian principles -- 5. conclusion -- VI Kant and His Contemporaries on Development and the Problem of Organized Matter -- 14 Kant's Early Views on Epigenesis -- 1. the importance of maupertuis for kant -- 2. maupertuis: least action, physicotheology, and epigenesis -- 3. kant's only possible argument: epigenesis and hylozoism -- 4. kant's later thought on epigenesis -- 15 Blumenbach and Kant on Mechanism and Teleology in Nature -- 1 -- 2 -- 3 -- VII Kant and the Beginnings of Evolution -- 16 Kant and the Speculative Sciences of Origins -- 1. introduction -- 2. the sciences of origins -- 3. critical idealism as a response to materialism -- 4. kant's views on the origins of life and man -- 5. the postcritical kant and the speculative sciences of origins -- 17 Kant and Evolution -- 1. kant on organisms -- 2. kant on evolution -- 3. opus postumum -- 4. georges cuvier -- 5. against evolution -- 6. conclusion -- Bibliography -- primary sources -- secondary sources -- Index.