[326] [If this new handiwork of man, so charmingly arranged by our author, is not more successful than Pandora, as made by Vulcan, we fear the world will not gain much by it. In the olden times, the man who propounded such curious ideas would probably have had a punishment awarded him, something similar to that suffered by Prometheus. Does M. Pouchet, in quoting this personage, entirely forget the rest of the tale, and the _consequences_ of his rashness? We are really sorry, however, to see science perverted to a _pet idea_, if we may use the expression, and twisted by means of “bad anatomy and worse theology,” as a friend of ours calls it, for the sake of proving facts quite impossible to be solved. M. Pouchet gives us, in spontaneous generation, a first germ with which to start a _primordial anatomical element_, as he calls it. He starts with this, and argues--in what manner we leave it to our readers to determine--that, from this germ there have, in time, sprung all the animals on the surface of the globe. But he does not tell us how this _first germ_ itself arose. That is put entirely on one side, and taken for granted. We cannot take it for granted however; and until we have it satisfactorily proved that he is right in any part of his idea, we shall go on thinking and believing as we have done before.--EDITOR.] [327] See Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, _Vie d’E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_, p. 287. [328] See above, chap. viii. [329] Compare Owen, _On the Characters, Principles of Division, and Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia_ (_Journal of Linnean Society_, 1857.) [330] See, for the explanation and discussion of these different systems, Crull, _Dissertatio de Cranio_, 1810. [331] Compare Crull, _Dissertatio de Cranio_, p. 28, 1810. [332] Compare Crull, _Dissertatio de Cranio_, p. 52. [333] Busk and Quekett (_Medical Times and Gazette_).