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# Nicolas Malebranche and the idea that all generations are contained in the mother's egg
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-rassuzhdeniiakh-frantsuzskogo-monakha-i-kak-ni-stranno-filosofa-nikolia-malbransha-1638-1715-interesno-predstavlena-ideia-premorfizma/
- Published: 2019-06-27T07:10:47.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:54:43.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Faith, Science, People

In the reasoning of the French monk and, strange to say, philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715), the idea of preformation is presented with some interest. Malebranche held that every living creature is, from the very beginning, contained in the egg of its mother. In the embryo of a tulip bulb he discovered a whole tulip, and in the embryo of a hen's egg, a whole chick. The chain of argument led the shrewd Frenchman to the conclusion that all who ever lived, all who live now and all who will live in the future were created at the original moment of creation, and were placed in the maternal egg on the principle of a matryoshka doll. The coming into the world of such primordial beings Malebranche called unfolding. Cell theory did not yet exist in 1674, so that not only a monk but many a man of learning could quite readily picture a living organism of any size you please, however minute, enclosed in the egg of its mother, of any size you please, however tiny, enclosed in the egg of its mother, and so on.