xin.] CRITICISMS ON " THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 319 



It is formed at once; it is formed at the single individual moment 

 at which the conjunction of the male and female elements takes 

 place." 



It will be observed that M. Flourcns uses lancmace 

 which cannot be mistaken. For him, the labours of Von 

 Baer, of Eathke, of Coste, and their contemporaries and 

 successors in Germany, France, and England, are non- 

 existent , and, as Darwin "imagina" natural selection, so 

 Harvey "imagina" that doctrine which gives him an even 

 greater claim to the veneration of posterity than his 

 better known discovery of the circulation of the blood. 



Language such as that we have quoted is, in fact, so 

 preposterous, so utterly incompatible with anything but 

 absolute ignorance of some of the best established facts, 

 that we should have passed it over in silence had it not 

 appeared to afford some clue to M. Flourens' unhesitating, 

 a priori, repudiation of all forms of the doctrine of the 

 progressive modification of living beings. He whose 

 mind remains uninfluenced by an acquaintance with the 

 phaenomena of development, must indeed lack one of the 

 chief motives towards the endeavour to trace a genetic 

 relation between the different existing forms of life. 

 Those who are ignorant of Geology, find no difficulty in 

 believing that the world was made as it is ; and the 

 shepherd, untutored in history, sees no reason to regard 

 the green mounds which indicate the site of a Eoman 

 camp, as aught but part and parcel of the primaeval 

 hill-side. So M. Flourens, who believes that embryos 

 are formed " tout d'un coup/' naturally finds no difficulty 

 in conceiving that species came into existence in the 

 game way. 



