born Sept. 10, 1713, London, Eng.
died Dec. 30, 1781, Brussels, Belg.
British naturalist.
He was a Roman Catholic priest, whose reading about microscopic organisms led him to study natural history in London and Paris (1746–49). He became a strong supporter of the theory that life arose from inorganic matter (spontaneous generation) and that life processes cannot be explained by the laws of chemistry and physics (vitalism). In 1750 he presented his theory of spontaneous generation and attempted to offer scientific evidence supporting it.