| 
: 
, 3 
. 3 
= 
104 CRITICISMS ON “THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES” 
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 
sera there but a “dernidre erreur du dernier 
sitcle””—a personification of Nature—leads us 
indeed to cry with him: “O lucidité! O solidité 
de lesprit Francais, 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 Palzeon- 
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. &e. How one knows it all by 
heart, and with what relief one reads at p. 65— 
‘¢ Je laisse M. Darwin!” 
