CRITICISMS ON "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES" 193 



times. It is formed at once at the single individual 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 pre- 

 posterous, 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 pro- 

 gressive modification of living beings. He whose mind 

 remains uninfluenced by an acquaintance with the pheno- 

 mena 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 Roman camp, as aught but part and 

 parcel of the primeval 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 same way. 



