66 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
a very good opinion of M. Figuier and his compilations j hut to compare him 
with Pouchet, or to class the hooks of the two in the same category, would 
he a monstrous injustice to the latter. M. Pouchet has his faults ; he is 
given occasionally to confounding inferences with facts, and to dogmatising 
a little too strongly on points in heterogeny ; hut, whatever his sins, he is 
not to he regarded as a scientific quilldriver, hut as an earnest and indus- 
trious investigator in some of the most difficult paths of science. We trust, 
then, that readers will understand that, in writing a popular treatise, 
M. Pouchet is coming down from his usual pedestal of research to do a 
good work — to lend a hand conscientiously to the furtherance of a knowledge 
of science among the people. 
M. Pouchet’s book, then, is just such an one as might he expected of its 
author. In accuracy it leaves nothing to he desired. Its scope is immense, 
and therefore the method of dealing with the several subjects is of a 
general kind, details being, as far as possible, avoided ; hut it is not on this 
account sketchy. If the colours are laid on roughly with the knife, there 
has been a careful study of the tout ensemble, the effect is Turneresque, and 
the whole picture is one — not pre-Raphaelitish, showing us a myriad of 
small things, hut — which gives us a fine broad landscape in which the uni- 
verse itself is depicted. 
And what does this hook tell us of P asks the enquiring reader. In answer, 
let us say that it treats upon all, or nearly all, natural phenomena, and some 
unnatural ones. The leading facts in zoology, from the polycystin to the 
elephant ; in botany, from the bacterium to the palm ; and in geology and 
palaeontology, from the simplest elementary fact in ordinary denudation to 
the consolidation of a glacier or the elevation of a mountain range, from the 
foraminifera of the chalk to the huge Dinornis or Megatherium, all find a 
place in M. Pouchet’s history. And on all he tells us if not something new, 
at least something put in a new fashion, and in forcible, vivid language, 
and in a way which gives us something besides the fact — gives us an idea of 
its relation to other facts, and suggests something additional in the way of 
generalisation. The style is fresh and vigorous, like that of a preacher whose 
heart is in his sermon and whose congregation doesn’t slumber. In short, 
the author carries his reader along with him. All sections of the work are 
good, but we fancy the entomological portion is a little too extended, not 
absolutely so, but in relation to the other departments. The author’s notes 
are numerous and carefully prepared, and are well supplemented by those 
of the editor, who, we may remark, has drawn largely on our pages for 
material. 
The portion of the work to which our interest attaches mo3t largely is the 
last, in which M. Pouchet gives a popular sketch of the arguments for and 
against heterogeny or spontaneous generation. The critics have overlooked 
this — a fact not surprising wh^n we mention that the chapter opens on 
page 712, and that some reviewers believe, with Sidney Smith, that im- 
partiality cannot be exhibited if the critic extends his reading beyond the 
title page. Here, however, is to be found the best outline of this important 
controversy which has yet been given. We exclude M. Pennetier’s book 
because it is in French. In this chapter the English general reader is first 
initiated into the important discoveries of Pouchet, Musset, and others, and 
