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 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 progressive
modification of living beings. He whose mind remains uninfluenced by an
acquaintance with the phenomena 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.
End of Criticisms on "The Origin of Species".
EVIDENCE AS TO MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE
1863.
(entire page is illustration with caption as follows:)
Skeletons of the GIBBON. ORANG. CHIMPANZEE. GORILLA. MAN.
Photographically reduced from Diagrams of the natural size (except
that of the Gibbon, which was twice as large as nature), drawn by Mr.
Waterhouse Hawkins from specimens in the Museum of the Royal College of
Surgeons.
ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES.
Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe processes of modern
investigation, commonly enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is
singular how often the dream turns out to have been a half-waking one,
presaging a reality. Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the geologist:
the Atlantis was an imagination, but Columbus found a western world: and
though the quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs have an existence only
in the realms of art, creatures approaching man more nearly than they
in essential structure, and yet as thoroughly brutal as the goat's
or horse's half of the mythical compound, are now not only known, but
notorious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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