  In the realm of biological phenomena, Gassendi offers greatly diverse accounts drawing on an atomist framework. His most significant proposal in this regard is an account of generation and inheritance in terms of a material ‘soul’ or animula bearing ontogenetic information. In sexual reproduction, two sets of seminal matter and corresponding animulae meet and jointly determine the division, differentiation, and development of matter in the new organism. The determination of inherited traits requires combining or choosing among each parent's contributions, entailing competition and dominance among the animulae (O II 284b-285a). The animula is defined in terms of its constituent atoms, which must be uniform in order that animulae may operate equivalently across different modes of generation, whether ‘pre-organized’ or spontaneous. Further, Gassendi offers his molecular model as a material means of storing ontogenetic information received from the souls of parent organisms (O II 170b-171a, 280b).