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Updated: May 13, 2025
Chief of these, during the middle period of the century, was the man who is sometimes spoken of as the "father of brain physiology," Marie Jean Pierre Flourens, of the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, the pupil and worthy successor of Magendie.
Aristote disait que 'Si l'art de bâtir était dans le bois, cet art agirait comme la nature. A la place de l'art de bâtir M. Darwin met l'election naturelle, et c'est tout un: l'un n'est pas plus chimérique que l'autre." And this is really all that M. Flourens can make of Natural Selection.
But the most elaborate criticisms of the 'Origin of Species' which have appeared are two works of very widely different merit, the one by Professor Kolliker, the well-known anatomist and histologist of Wurzburg; the other by M. Flourens, Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences.
Even man has instincts: it is a special instinct which leads the new-born child to suck. But, in man, almost every thing is accomplished by intelligence; and intelligence supplements instinct. The opposite is true of animals: their instinct is given them as a supplement to their intelligence." Flourens: Analytical Summary of the Observations of F. Cuvier.
But we cannot leave M. Flourens without calling our readers' attention to his wonderful tenth chapter, "De la Preexistence des Germes et de l'Epigenese," which opens thus: "Spontaneous generation is only a chimaera. This point established, two hypotheses remain: that of pre-existence and that of epigenesis. The one of these hypotheses has as little foundation as the other."
M. Gustave Flourens published a letter from his prison suggesting that the people should choose as their leader a young energetic Democrat that is to say himself. M. Felix Pyat, on the other hand, explained that generals are tyrants, and that the best thing would be to carry on the operations of the siege without one.
Jourde was a medical student, one of the best men in the Commune, and faithful to his trust as its finance minister. Flourens, the scientist, a genuine enthusiast, we have seen was killed in the first skirmish with the Versaillais. Félix Pyat was an arch conspirator, but a very spirited and agreeable writer. He was elected in 1888 a deputy under the Government of the Third Republic.
Did M. Flourens ever visit one of the prettiest watering-places of "la belle France," the Baie d'Arcachon? If so, he will probably have passed through the district of the Landes, and will have had an opportunity of observing the formation of "dunes" on a grand scale. What are these "dunes?"
It may be added that it is this spot which is reached by the needle of the garroter in Spanish executions, and that the same centre also is destroyed when a criminal is "successfully" hanged, this time by the forced intrusion of a process of the second cervical vertebra. Flourens named this spot the "vital knot."
Darwin's labours which he always displays. It would be satisfactory to be able to say as much for M. Flourens. But the Perpetual Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences deals with Mr.
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