& 
Mm CRITICISMS ON “ THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES” 105 
_ But we cannot leave M. Flourens without calling 
our readers’ attention to his wonderful tenth 
- chapter, “De la Préexistence des Germes et de 
PEpigénése,” which opens thus :— 
‘Spontaneous generation is only a chimera. This point 
established, two hypotheses remain: that of pre-existence and 
- that of epigenesis. The one of these hypotheses has as little 
foundation as the other.” (P. 163.) 
** The doctrine of evigenesis is derived from Harvey : follow- 
ing by ocular inspection the development of the new being in 
the Windsor does, he saw each part appear successively, and 
taking the moment of appearance for the moment of formation 
he imagined epigenesis.” (P. 165.) 
On the contrary, says M. Flourens (p. 167), 
**The new being is formed at a stroke (tout d’wn coup), asa 
whole, instantaneously ; it is not formed part by part, and at 
different times. It is formed at once at the single individuai 
moment at which the conjunction of the male and female 
elements takes place.” 
It will be observed that M. Flourens uses 
language which cannot be mistaken. For him, 
the labours of Von Baer, of Rathke, 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 
