etre organise, la nature n'est que l'organisation, ni plus ni moins.

"Il faudra donc aussi personnifier l'organisation, et dire que
l'organisation choisit l'organisation. L'election naturelle est cette
forme substantielle dont on jouait autrefois avec tant de facilite.
Aristote disait que 'Si l'art de batir etait dans le bois, cet art
agirait comme la nature.' A la place de l'art de batir M. Darwin met
l'election naturelle, et c'est tout un: l'un n'est pas plus chimerique
que l'autre." (P.31.)

And this is really all that M. Flourens can make of Natural Selection.
We have given the original, in fear lest a translation should be
regarded as a travesty; but with the original before the reader, we may
try to analyse the passage. "For an organized being, Nature is only
organization, neither more nor less."

Organized beings then have absolutely no relation to inorganic nature: a
plant does not, depend on soil or sunshine, climate, depth in the
ocean, height above it; the quantity of saline matters in water have no
influence upon animal life; the substitution of carbonic acid for
oxygen in our atmosphere would hurt nobody! That these are absurdities
no one should know better than M. Flourens; but they are logical
deductions from the assertion just quoted, and from the further
statement that natural selection means only that "organization chooses
and selects organization."

For if it be once admitted (what no sane man denies) that the chances of
life of any given organism are increased by certain conditions (A) and
diminished by their opposites (B), then it is mathematically certain
that any change of conditions in the direction of (A) will exercise a