104 CRITICISMS ON "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES" m 



another to disappear ; and thus the living world 

 bears within itself, and is surrounded by, impulses 

 towards incessant change. 



But the truths just stated are as certain as any 

 other physical laws, quite independently of the 

 truth, or falsehood, of the hypothesis which Mr. 

 Darwin has based upon them; and that M. 

 Flourens, missing the substance and grasping at a 

 shadow, should be blind to the admirable exposi- 

 tion of them, which Mr. Darwin has given, and see 

 nothing there but a " derniere erreur du dernier 

 siecle " a personification of Nature leads us 

 indeed to cry with him : " O lucidite ! O solidite 

 de 1'esprit Francois, que devenez-vous ? " 



M. Flourens has, in fact, utterly failed to com- 

 prehend the first principles of the doctrine which 

 he assails so rudely. His objections to details are 

 of the old sort, so battered and hackneyed on this 

 side of the Channel, that not even a Quarterly 

 Reviewer could be induced to pick them up for 

 the purpose of pelting Mr. Darwin over again. 

 We have Cuvier and the mummies ; M. Roulin 

 and the domesticated animals of America; the 

 difficulties presented by hybridism and by Paleon- 

 tology ; Darwinism a rifacciamento of De Maillet 

 and Lamarck ; Darwinism a system without a 

 commencement, and its author bound to believe in 

 M. Pouchet, &c. &c. How one knows it all by 

 heart, and with what relief one reads at p. 65 

 " Je laisse M. Darwin ! " 



