| | | In default of new facts and new ideas, M. Flourens, wishing | to present the world with something new, presents us with | a new science. He calls it Ontology The term, he | admits, is not novel; but finding it convenient, he does not | hesitate to lay hands on it. Metaphysicians have spoiled | the term ~~ he will rehabilitate it. Few of us would quarrel | with its rehabilitation, or would deny him the use of the | term, if it really designated a new idea ~~ if it did | present us with a new science; but we cannot be expected | to acquiesce in this novel employment of an accepted work, | in the service of a purely arbitrary colligation of subjects. M. | Flourens has given us no new science, no new | arrangement of fundamental ideas ~~ he has simply | selected certain points of zoology and palaeontology, and, | bringing them together in one course of lectures, | pompously introduces them as the elements of a new | science. He discusses the zoological question of

| “species,”

the physiological question of

| “development,”

the zoological question of

| “distribution of species in space, ”

and the | palaeontological question of

“distribution of | species ,hi> in time” ~~ four questions of great | importance, but very far from justifying their separation into | a distinct science. The lectures here published ar of | sufficient interest to justify our calling the reader’s attention | to them ~~ and the more so because the title of the book | would scare away many persons who would take delight in | the contents. One set of readers would never think of | opening a Cours de Physiologie Comparee | another set of readers, whom this title might attract, would | perhaps turn away on seeing the second title De | l’Ontologie. Throughout, the manner is detestable, | the matter interesting. M. Flourens is at times arrogant, | twaddling, trenchant, and shallow ~~ he is incessantly | glorifying himself, and talking of

“ma theorie,” “mes | experiences,”

when every well-informed reader knows | that the theory belongs to others, and that others have | instituted ten times as many experiences. But | although these lectures will be read with very mitigated | admiration for the Professor, the subjects treated of and | the inquiries suggested make the volume acceptable to all | philosophical students. | In an admirable essay by Sir Henry Holland on “Medical | Evidence” ( Medical Notes and Reflections, | subsequently reprinted in Chapters on Mental | Physiology ) it is said ~~ Sir Henry is | speaking here of disease; but that very complexity which | baffles the physician baffles also the physiologist, and | should make him as cautious as the physician in accepting | evidence. Such caution is not a habit with M. Flourens, | who generalizes with the rapidity of a Frenchman, and with | the peremptoriness of a professor. We cannot, within our | limits, specify a third of the examples of this hasty | dogmatism; but we give the reader a general caution not to | accept M. Flourens’ statements when other corroboration | is not at hand. | One or two examples will justify this caution. he lays it | down as a law that only those animals which are social by | nature, and which live in troops, can be domesticated. He | wishes to prove that domestication springs from | sociality. He foresees the objection that the cat | is domestic, and not social; but he dismisses it with the | summary assertion that cats are tamed, not | domesticated. | With that sentence the Professor closes his lecture. He has | disposed of the objection ~~ shut it up. Domesticity is | proved to belong to sociality. If, however, the student, on | quitting the lecture room, happens to wander into a | homestead and there remarks that pigs, sheep, cows and | poultry are all sociable and all domestic, it may occur to | him that pigs, sheep, cows and hens manifest quite as little | regard for man as the cat manifests, neither sharing man’s | labours nor his sorrows to any impassioned degree. Are | they only tamed? It may then occur to him that | herrings are social, but not domestic; bees, ants &c., are | social, but not domestic; rooks and frogs equally social, but | generally thought to be imperfect specimens of domesticity. | It may further occur, on feflection, that bears, lions, and | tigers, by no means sociable, often show great attachment | to their keepers. | Again, M. Flourens lays down the law that fecundity | is always in inverse proportion to size | ~~ the smaller the animal, the greater its fecundity. | An absurd statement, which one would think any tyro | would have avoided. Size is only one element in | the problem of fecundity. he then declares it to be

“an | invariable law”

(Laws are sometimes variable?) that | the number of male births is always greater than | that of female births. Not to mention the more | disputed examples, there is one which is as old as Aristotle, | namely, that pigeons always produce two eggs, | one male and the other female. | From want of sufficient caution in accepting the evidence | on which he bases his conclusions, we see M. Flourens led | into serious contradictions. Thus he maintains the unity | and simultaneity of creation against the | generally accepted doctrine of successive | creations. We will not here open a question the proper | discussion of which requires more space than we can | afford. We can only notice the tottering basis on which M. | Flourens stands. His great argument is the fixity of species, | which he extends beyond existing races, to the fossil fauna. | he says, It may be so; it probably is so; | but any physiologist who has examined a mummy will | admit, we think, that the mummy offers very deceptive | evidence in so delicate a case. A dog and a fox are | universally admitted to be of different species. What are | their distinguishing anatomical characteristics? In the | skeleton there are absolutely none ~~ the only | specific character M. Flourens has discovered is the pupil | of the eye. In the dog it is disc-like ~~ in the fox it closes by | a vertical line, as in all nocturnal animals. Professor Owen, | we believe, has detected so9me glandular differences of | structure. At any rate, the differences are singularly minute | and difficult of detection; and, although dog and fox are | different species, and very distinct in habits, who could | pretend to specify the specific differences in two mummies | of a fox-like dog and a fox? | We lay no further stress on this than the caution it suggests | in regard to fossil remains. If it be difficult to assign specific | characters in mummies, it is ten times more difficult to | assign specific characters in mummies, it is ten times more | difficult to assign them when only skeletons remain. M. | Flourens, who has early in this volume recognised, and | made much of, the fact that the skeletons of the horse and | ass are indistinguishable, although horse and ass form | distinct species, in the later lectures adduces the fossil | remains as affording conclusive evidence of the identity of | ancient and modern species! He admits that some species | are extinct, but asserts that all the species now existing did | exist in the earlier formations. For so startling a conclusion | something like coercive evidence should be adduced. He is | content with very mild arguments. His proofs are, first, that | the unity of creation is a necessary consequence of the | unity of the animal kingdom ~~ a position intelligible on the | hypothesis of Lamarck, which has been made popular in | the Vestiges, but which M. Flourens rejects, for | he maintains the fixity of species. And against the | overwhelming evidence of geology in favour of the | successive appearances of animal forms, he brings his | second series of proofs ~~ namely, that some discoveries | of mammals existing in strata lower than those usually | assigned as the mammiferous epochs disprove the | hypothesis of successive creations, and, by disproving it, | lend force to the hypothesis of simultaneous creation. He | refers to Professor Owne’s fossil marsupials, the | thylacotherium and the phascolotherium, | and to the fossil monkeys discovered by Lartet and Owen. | He even believes in fossil man! | The logic displayed by M. Flourens in this discussion we | leave, with the rest of the book, to the meditation of the | reader. In spite of its many faults, the volume treats of | subjects too interesting not to solicit attention.